Datastream Apologues
by Scarabbug
Summary: Short fics that have been buzzing around in the harddrives. Short and hopefully interesting, if nothing else. Welcome to the Datastream. Latest: Ace Lightning and the Joy of Winterfest: Presents are no longer safe in Conestoga Hills! A sort-of Xmas fic.
1. Beginning

Yeah. This is just a drabble that I was very pleased with, so I posted it on account of the fact that it's my first. Did not get it betaed so feel free to nitpick all 300 words of it.

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**Aftera Battle.**

**By Scarab Dynasty**

The moment the Flash landed in the Thunder tower Sparx stumbled off, fell against a wall, exhausted, and was not surprised to see Ace sink down next to her. This was understandable, considering the last three solid hours had been spent in battle. Even superheroes run out of energy.

'It's a compulsion, isn't it?' Ace said.

'What's a compulsion?' Sparx mumbled.

'Your need to jump out at the bad guys every time. I told you not to attack, what part of "undercover surveillance" don't you understand?'

Sparx grunted. 'She crept up on me. What was I supposed to do, ask her to keep quiet?'

'She might've.'

'Whatever…' Sparx was too tired to care about Lady Illusion this time. She tried to stand and realised she couldn't. She groaned.

'What is it?'

'I can't get up.'

'You'll have to, you need to power up.'

'Don't brother me… I can't be bothered.'

'Okay, I'll go first.'

There was a two minutes pause.

'Ace?'

'Hm?'

'You said you were gonna power up.'

'I can't be bothered.'

'Guess I'll go then…'

…

'Sparx?'

'Yeah. I can't either…' she sighed. Ace felt her head slump on his shoulder. 'Actually the floor's not too bad…'

Another pause while Ace wondered if it was possible to be this incapable of movement when you were at 12 power…

'Sparx?'

'Hm?'

'Are we gonna sit here all night?'

'Do we have anywhere else to go?' Sparx grumbled.

'No.'

'Then yeah. Don't move.'

'Why not?'

Sparx sounded half asleep. 'Your shoulder's comfy…'

Ace stayed there not wanting to make her move. They really should've powered up though. 'Sparx?' There was a light snoring sound on his shoulder. He nudged her. 'Sparx?'

Sparx moved, uttering a barely comprehensible mumble. 'Shut up. Sleeping.'

'Sorry.' Ace sighed.

Damn, he'd just power up tomorrow…

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You like? Okay it's drabble… and it's short. But I think it's extremely cute and I've never done a decent drabble before so... yeah. Hope you like.

Later

Scarab xxx


	2. Freaks

Additional triple-drabble. I thought that I might add another drabble, sicne I seem to have built up quite a few of them lately.

265 words, feel free to criticize.

Freak.

Yeah Knight's know their freak when they see em alright, not that they're easy to spot. And he knows damn well he's a freak, of the flew bitten I'm-the-smartest-sucker variety, and proud of it, baby!

He figured she sort of agreed with him on that count. Truth comes out when you're sitting around in bubbles waiting for some namby superhero to come along and save your butt. You can get talking to your captors to pass the time right?

They should be thanking him anyways for keeping an eye on the lady. Not that he complained about it. He could think of worse things to be stuck staring at for hours on end. Right?

When you get down to it, they're both freaks in a way. She's the female amongst the males and he's the… sneak amongst the weirdos. Maybe that's why he talked to her in the first place. For a good guy she seemed... alright. Good lookin' too. No match on Lady I but… yeah… And hell, nearly got his moment of glory outta it too, that was a good time, giving Fear the run about. Holding this joint like his own. All thanks to her.

Sorta.

He knows she out-ratted him on that one, beat him at his own game if ya really think about it. What can he say he's a sucker for the sweet talk.

Only when the next chance comes to get his own back on that smirking, upstart freak of a Knight… well, it takes him a few seconds longer than it normally would to chuck the bomb…

Stupid Lightning Knight.

There we have it. Felt like giving a different take on the rat and freaking people out ever so slightly. Hope you liked.


	3. Programmed to CRUSH?

**Another shortie from me, my first attempt at Rick POV. Hope you like. I don't think I can consider it a drabble though. Just too short to go anywhere else.Word count 438.**

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Programmed to CRUSH?

'Hey Procter… what's with the hormones on the rat?'

Davie glanced up from where he was working on the Googler program. He was irritated. Very irritated. Namely, he just couldn't get the puppets to fly at the right graphic trajectory and they kept penetrating the scenery of the circus. Anyway, he had figured it best to ignore Rick the last few weeks. The guy had been becoming excessively testy. Talking to himself, bursting into laughter for no apparent reason, casting sharp stares of suspicion at everyone he passed. Davie was thinking about calling in the psychiatrist. So he didn't answer the query, until Rick tossed a floppy disk at him.

'Hey, circus freaks guy!'

'What is it?' Davie sighed

Rick gave him a withering stare over his beloved computer. 'I'm talking about the freaks, you idiot. The… the rats, the monsters, the... mutants.'

'What about them?'

'Little weird don't you think?' Davie didn't answer. Rick slapped his forehead. 'Oh yeah wait, you _don't_ think. You seen the character description in this?' He waved a few photocopied pages of the first guidebook printout at Davie's face. 'What is this? Hormonal imbalance in videogame characters? I've got rats apparently crushing on heroines here, don't you find that the slightest bit freaky?'

Davie laughed loudly, whistling at the figure on the paper. 'I dunno, looking at that girl…'

Rick appeared to want to strangle him, but kept his voice down.' This is gonna cause inconsistency in characters, you know that? Why would a _rat_ get a crush on a super heroine? More to the point, why would this freaky, mutant little bad guy be talking about some hyperactive Lightning Knight like someone of his own species?'

'Um yeah… Rick…'

'Oh don't tell me,' Rick muttered, 'CG graphic illustrations don't have hormones, whatever Davie.'

'Hey I don't really think it matters, man, they're inside a videogame.'

'Oh yeah doesn't matter NOW maybe…' Rick's voice turned to a mumble and Davie didn't catch the rest of the sentence.

'Rick you've got to stop talking like this, buddy,' Davie muttered, rather self-conscious because people in the corridors were stopping to stare. Damn glassproduction block walls. 'B'sides I don't do the Dirty Rats.'

'I'm not your buddy,' Rick said dryly. Sitting back down at the computer. 'So talk to the guy who does. Gettem to rewrite the damn guidebook before to go into production… Hell I am not programming these guys with emotion surpluses!'

'Seriously Rick you're working too hard, it's going to your head. Uh… don't say it…'

'I'm not saying anything, Procter. Get back to your damn… mutant puppets.'

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**Hm… I was going for the "isn't it a pity that they consider creatures of typical attractiveness (like Sparx) to be beautiful as opposed to their own kind argument… well, hope you liked.**


	4. Count Delusion

Just a short fic that was rescued afted the crash on the message board. (Lost... so much... sob).

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Disclaimer: They all belong to Rick… the producer, not he master programmer, okay?

This character is also not mine. He is in the proud possession of Fanfic writer Wile E. Coyote and I am merely loaning him for the purpose of this drabble. Thanks Wile. :)

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Count Delusion.

The smoke was his cover. His means of escape and sometimes, his means of concealment. His fortification, if you will, allowing him to creep into the places where even that emancipated corpse wouldn't dare. Places that allowed him to get closer to Kilobyte than others could get, without ending up back in the sixth dimension with the headache of a lifetime. He feathered in and out of walls with no concept of solidity.

That, and his uncanny knack for knowing the very thoughts that raced around her head, was how he learned of her betrayal.

It was not just the love she supposedly felt for that… creature, that idealistic hero, that hurt him. Rather, it was the source of that love: the pitiful emotions of a human. It was this world that had done it to her, this wretched world with all its penetrating textures and ugly colours in a thousand shades that were so more complex and bizarre and bewildering than any of those at the carnival back in the Sixth Dimension. Even the master of delusion himself had taken his time getting used to it. She was becoming more and more like one of these ridiculous mortals with every passing minute.

Lord Fear had been a worse enough prospect. The program's sick idea of a joke, he imagined, pairing such a beauty with such an incompetent fool who wasn't fit to be called amongst the living. But _this_…

A rattling web of bones suddenly collapsed out of a hole in the ceiling, swinging back and forth before him with a mechanical screech from a hidden speaker. The Count started, momentarily alarmed. Then he smiled and reached out to rip down the plastic bones. A ridiculous human prank, but a reasonable one. It almost surprised him.

One thing he DID admire about these humans was their ability for fooling one another and finding it fun, and for seeking out the lies others told them and seeing through the heaviest of facades using nothing but their… what did they call it? Gut instinct? This was an ability that the brat whose body he had just left lying in the corridor to the haunted house, had apparently not yet grasped.

What had surprised him, especially, was that the boy had followed him. The Count had known that the boy hadn't trusted him; had not believed that he really knew how to free his friends. He had made no secret of that. And yet he had still followed, driven by the longing to find the friends he had lost in this place. Perhaps, the boy had considered the Count to be more like his sister than he was: Susceptible to his… emotions, and more recently, even to pity. Perhaps he had assumed himself strong enough to challenge him. The Count hadn't bothered to read his thoughts and find out, before he peppered him with more concentrated energy than a supercharger, but both would have been foolish mistakes. The Count now went on through the Haunted House alone. Leaving the boy for the evils to find. He'd been an unfortunate nuisance, that was all, only useful for getting him into the haunted house. Maybe Lord Fear could think of a suitable use for him and his Lightning Knight friends.

That was when he saw her, and her him. Or rather she saw the essence of him, the smoke that covered his form as he crept up beside her and gripped her wrist in his hands.

'You… really should get away from me…'

He gripped her thin shoulder's tighter still, laughing, thinking how skinny she was and how much he disliked her, yet still there was…

There was what? Sympathy for her? Pity? Why _not_ pity a woman stuck with that skeletal freak for a companion? Still, the count thought a great deal less of her _other_ choices. While his hatred at her betrayal ordered him to rip the skin from her very bones, years of bondage as her brother kept him wavering hopelessly.

As much as he despised her for betraying him, leaving him to rot all those years ago when they were trapped in the prison of the Sixth Dimension, he… disliked all this. Her being tossed back and forth from freak to freak, between anyone who whimmed her. One's plaything, another's curiosity and a third's Zoar-knows-what… worse still was that the Lightning Knight Hero should be the one to have her heart.

Who would have thought that Count Delusion's own sister could even have a heart? Much less one so easily shattered.

_She is my sister. Mine_. He emphasised this by griping her arm tightly in his.

'Not even a hello for old times sake, my lady? Aren't you happy to see your dear brother?'

'I warn you, let go,' Lady Illusion held up her free hand, a crystal ball of glowing energy materialising in her palm and she held it at arms length with every intention of using it. 'Don't think I won't. If I can do it to him I can do it to you.'

She didn't have to explain herself, of course, and she knew she didn't. The count had never needed anything explaining. He had seen her fire at Ace Lightning and rip him apart with the feelings she gave him, and he had watched her take pleasure in bringing this pain to the one whom she loved. At least at that one, single, deluded moment, he had been able to convince himself that she hated Ace Lightning. The Count had never actually been there to witness any of these events, but he had not needed to be. One minute in her company was all he needed to have at least a vague idea about all of her secrets.

If those were the kind of things she would do to Ace Lightning, then he dreaded to think what she might do to those she hated and did not fear. She feared Kilobyte but she did not fear the Count. He was her brother after all.

'Now is this any way to treat a brother, my lady?'

'Who needs brothers?' she snarls at him. Her eyes were as hot and violent as ever they were, but something in them had changed and he couldn't think what. 'How did you get here? I have no amulet pieces. You shouldn't BE here.' She said it with such malice that he thought she hated him as much as he hated her. Looking into her mind soon confirmed these suspicions. They hovered on the delicate brink between bound siblings and furious, forgotten brother and sister, who failed each other a long time ago and have never come to terms with hating each other for it. Both of them willing to kill the other, if it hadn't been for the few strands of programming that made them brother and sister. If it hadn't been for the wretched programming.

The Count knew how entangled she was in that program. How blinded she was by it. How it forced her into doing things she did not wish to do and hurting those she no longer wished to hurt. To him, the program was nothing worth fighting against.

'You do, you needed me so I came here, no amulet pieces, no nothing… _your_ power was enough to bring me here, sister. You need my protection.'

'Protection from who?' she spat the word. She knows protection is not what he had in mind. Spying more like, stalking.

'You know whom I mean.'

Lady Illusion tensed in his stare for she knew that his mind was penetrating hers. She alone could feel that: the sensation of his mind reading as he probed her thoughts and memories. The thought of him rooting around in her head was disgusting to her, yet she couldn't prevent it and didn't bother to try.

_He reads her thoughts carefully like the pages of a complicated manual you must read very closely in order to understand everything that it is trying to say to you. The mortal music, the hands at her waist, the grey-blue eyes staring into hers, the soft kiss on a frozen cheek, her hands grasped within his… _

_Then the shocks of pink electricity and green energy. Another pair of eyes, still blue, but angry this time, and flaming with energy and determination. The screaming pain both inside and out. The sheer programmed hate in his sister's mind, fighting with the love in her heart as she drives one of her powerful explosives of energy into his chest, willing him to break. _

_And the pain of it… the pain is awful, raging back and forth between beautiful and terrible. It spirals round and round inside of her, eating at her program like a virus. Guilt, anger, guilt, pain, rage and back to pain again. Whatever this love is it is endless and unbreakable and rages against her programming. It could kill her, and yet she's still alive._

He drew back, close to screaming out with rage. The smoke that made up his body billowed around him. He knew that he had had to touch her, to dig as deep into her mind as it was possible to go to convince himself these were not his own delusions. There was no hiding from the truth now and a sense of betrayal raged within him.

_Ace Lightning_… of all the damned people in the Sixth dimension!

'Seen what you wanted to see?' Lady Illusion asked. Her voice was antagonizing and infuriating, she knew that what he had just seen disgusted him. She knew that he had expected to see it, yet had not wanted to imagine it possible. She knew now that he had seen her truth, felt her truth, and she was glad of it.

So, now what would he do to her?

'So that's what you've been up to sister,' he almost smiled, but it was a violent smile, without any kindness. 'Betraying Fear for your hero, betraying the hero for Kilobyte and then risking death in Kilobyte's hands when you remember what you feel for the man you tried to hate. Kilobyte would murder you if he had this knowledge.'

Lady Illusion hesitated, her face set deep with anger, and now there was some confusion there too as she tried to work out whether her own brother was daring to blackmail her. No, she wouldn't take that. Being blackmailed by an ugly, fat toad on a cane she would take, but not her own flesh and data.

Then she stepped back. He allowed her to pull out of his grip and she sneered, then laughed at him loudly a laugh that was truly evil incarnate. And yet it was fake, brittle and empty. The Count wondered why she bothered to pretend some time. Perhaps it was a pretence, to hide her fears from those less sensitive to such things than he was. It didn't work with him.

He reached for her arm again, missed and instead gripped the hem of her shirt, tightly. Almost tight enough to rip it had the material not been un-rippable. 'Come now sister, you know that you have never had any secrets from me…' He was barely able to keep up his mask and hide the fury in his voice. Now, it seemed like she was the mind reader and knew all he is feeling.

'Yet your existence revolves around secrets,' she said. 'Secrets and lies and deception. Now that you know mine what will you do about them? Kill me? I've already been threatened with that time and again and it's starting to get old. Perhaps you'll think too much of me to turn me in. You are my brother, after all.'

He sneered back, yet a part of him knew it was true. Knew that he would keep his Lady's secret. The secret of Ace Lightning and her and all the feelings she was never supposed to feel. He doesn't understand it, and yet he will. 'Both our lives revolve around deception and illusions, it seems my lady… it has always been so. Our names say as much. So, is a secret like this worth keeping?'

She smiled, and this time the smile was a genuine one. Small, thin, but genuine and filled with contempt. As if she knew of things he would never know of and had felt things that no amount of reading her mind would give him.

She nodded her head slowly, deliberately. 'Yes.'

The count released her, he stepped back. There was still a fury in his eyes that she'd rather not be witness to. The smoke that billowed up around him took on a tinge of furious purple. It was so thick and potent that she could taste it on her tongue, and when she looked again he has gone, taking her secret with him. A few moments later, she started to wonder if perhaps she had imagined him.


	5. Decutt's Decree

**Disclaimer: Don't they get it already? No characters named are mine!

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Driver's Ed Aftermath.

Scarab Dynasty.

_"A driver NEVER forgets. A driver is always aware, are you a driver Mr Hollander?"_

_"Uh, No... I mean, no, that's... why I'm taking the lessons...?"_

Ha! Taking the lessons indeed, Hollander!Not if Mr Decutt had anything to say about it. Not now, not next week, not so long as the law required you to pass two practicals and a written exam on the subject, not so long as HE was the driver's ed. instructor.

Well, he wasn't wrong about one thing. The kid _was_ incredible.

He pats the roof of the car and checks the rather heavily penned "F" on his clipboard for the umpteenth time before going around back to inspect the damage. Okay, no joking this time. Did that kid crash into anything at all? It looked like someone's been attacking the bumper with a chainsaw.

He shudders when he thinks back to the afternoons test. Holy moly, that boy's driving was something else. And he isn't talking in the positive sense of the word.

Oh sure, he got the occasional speed lover who was a little heavy handed on the accelerator and didn't pay enough attention to Decutt's Decree in class (he usually kept those guys back till last anyway –a bad listener is almost guaranteed to be just as bad at paying attention to road signs, interchanges, traffic copsand his bumper lights. Funny though, Hollander had all those down to a tee and more, considering he was going at one-hundred-and-twenty kmph on an inner city highway). And there were always a couple more who didn't push fast _enough_ and got stuck at red lights because they didn't want to move, but this… THIS has been an altogether different kettle of fish.

He was betting the kids found it funny too. He had heard the rumours going around only half an hour after the kid got out of the car (never to step back in if he had anything to say about it.) This was going to go down in school urban legend alright. Great. Just great. So much for the decree.

What could he say? The boy had _seemed_ like the sensible type… at least until he got to the highway interchange. Mr Decutt had never taken a Driver's ed. lesson like that in his life. Well, no, actually there _had_ been this one kid, if he recalled rightly. A few years back when he was just starting out teaching. According to various other ex-students he was now rally driving on the pro circuit.

Well, he wasn't very well going to be the man who sent yet another Patrick what's-his-name (what was it… Raynald? Richardson? Richard? Yes, that was the name, Patrick Richard) speed-freak out into the roads to get himself or someone else mowed down. No siree. Not this driving instructor. No premature student funerals for him, thank you very much… no premature driving instructor funerals, at that…

The only problem was, he had to let the kid back in next semester.

He sighs before settling back in the driver's seat and steering the car around to the back car park, there's a nasty rattle coming from somewhere. The baby will probably never be the same again. Not to mention he was going to need a new bumper…

Thank God he didn't take Hollander for sports.

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**Crit appreciated :)**


	6. Counting Minutes

The only thing I'm really unsure about here is the title and I'm sure you can pick out something else. Hope you like it :). Unbetaed.

**Disclaimer**: This is so short I hardly think it's worth _doing_ a disclaimer… oh well… they aren't mine, okay? Sara is a character created by **Hyperpsychomaniac **(I use her here in a different context). All Ace characters are the property of **Rick Sigglekow** and related writers.

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Counting Minutes. 

'Ace…'

'It's okay.'

He's still there. He's been there for ages, waiting with him and choking on fumes. He's counting the minutes. They both are. It distracts them from the smoke and heat and the crushing pain in the arm beneath the pillar.

Well. It _used _to be an arm.

It's pointless to try, but he does anyway and Ace pushes him back.

'Hey, what part of "stay still" don't you understand?'

'You can't stay here.'

'Yes I can. Don't move—' he chokes. The molten rock is burning nearby rock and making the fumes worse. Rocks crumble and smash.

'Axe, you _can't_…'

'We have to. They'll find us. Hold on.'

'When? When they're searching for _bodies_?' he practically yells. 'Get out of here, for Zoar's sakes!

'Like you _got out of_ the Haunted House?'

Random pauses. 'That… that was different.'

'I could've died.'

'_I_ couldn't, not then.'

'You still risked your life for me.'

'It's not the same!'

'I don't care!' Ace yells. His face looks almost angry in the dimming crimson light, but Ace doesn't get angry. Well… not very often. 'I'm staying. I won't leave you. They'll find us both.'

'Ace, you're such an idiot!'

Does he want them both to get killed? _Do I mean that much? _

The air feels like it could catch fire any moment, the hot-flow is so close by and the rocks so close to smashing up. He can see Ace crackling, power slipping steadily to zero, and he knows he looks the same. Maybe worse, though.

Ace isn't an idiot. HE'S the idiot. He wants to curse himself to White Hot Oblivion. He shouldn't have let this happen. He should've followed Ace to the outlet and back to base instead of insisting on checking the under caverns. He should've written that letter to Sara before he went on an away mission. He should've…

No…

For a moment, he forgets the nearby heat is scorching his face. He looks at the pillar crushing his bones. Tearing his muscle.

He shudders.

'Random? Don't look at your arm, Random. Look at me.'

For a moment, he ignores him. And when he finally looks at Ace's face again, his expression has changed from agony to horror.

'Ace… I'm right handed.'

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As ever, concrit is appreciated, especially grammar concrit. 


	7. Simulation

Another Drabble. What can I say? I'm having one of those weeks... There's a possibility this may become a part of another fic I'm doing if I later feel it fits. For now, however, I just wanted to show you this. It's rather pointless, but then, isn't EVERYTHING in my Datastream Apologues?

**Disclaimer**: Oh, _please_. Would I BE here if they were?

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Simulator.

Scarab Dynasty.

He knew she was part of the team now. In fact, she had been for weeks. All the same, he didn't quite know what to think of her.

Ace just smiled when he mentioned that while watching her in action in the Holobubble, trying to decide whether or not to intervene. After all, it was only a simulation... and there weren't _that_ many Harpix.'Oh, come on, Random, she's not that bad.' Random cast him a withering glance.

'She wrecked my prototype without even trying,' he said blankly.

'That was an accident. You shouldn't have left it lying around in the first place,' Ace pointed out.

'I know, I know…' Random sighed. He watched as pink lightning burst through the air, frying a Harpix into holographic ashes. He was pretty sure she had the simulation set too high.

She veered on the Flash, turning back to face the remaining enemy, grinning.

'Is she playing chicken with that Harpix?'

'Apparently, yes.' Ace winced slightly as the figure they we're currently watching hurtled straight towards her holograph-enemy's face. This surprised it. It wasn't programmed to take high speed charges (most people wouldn't even vaguely CONSIDER charging a Harpix–not even a holographic one.) And Random watched as it burst into particles. He heard Ace audibly let out a breath he'd been holding.

'So… how long is she staying with us again?'

'About thirteen cycles, I think… six months or so. Some flyer, isn't she? She doesn't have _unmanned_ flight capability, but she can handle a jet better than most. They found her eating up the tracks in the inner city racing sims.'

Random shuddered. 'They actually HIRE flyers like that on a team level?'

Ace laughed. 'You've been living under a rock, Random. Well, in an engineer's lab. I hear the wilder the rider the better their chances of getting on a team.'

From playing chicken with a Harpix she'd turned to playing it with the hard floor below, allowing herself to fall and snatching up a second before hitting synthetic dirt. He winced without realising it. It was as if she'd entirely forgotten the other Knights were watching. He wouldn't be surprised. It was easy to forget where you were in the simulator.

'Yeah? In that caseI'll bet they were all after her…'

A few seconds later there was a screech as a Harpix finally got a claw in. The flash jolted backwards and smashed into a wall, as Sparx lost her grip and fell to the ground. She never actually hit it. Sensing the drop, the failsafe kicked in, and the wall came alive, electromagnetic wires bursting free and reaching out to snatch the falling knight in midair. The Flash wasn't so lucky and crashed into a wall. The failsafe held on tight, half-visible wires now holding the cadet against the wall as automatic scanners checking her vitals for damage. Random heard her swear in annoyance.

Random sighed. Him and Ace, he thinks, and now this… this…

'Yeah, um… guys?' Sparx was struggling to make the failsafe wires let her go again and ended up tangled in the signal readers. 'Um… A little help over here?'

…This tearaway.

'It's going to be an interesting six months,' he sighed.

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	8. Sprocket

I thought of this after H introduced Sprocket to the gang. It's a bit parodyish and I'm not usually one for creating a humorous situation out of Random's complex but… meh. Oh, and btw: watch out for the fluff. It's VERY heavy handed in this fic. Seriously this is sarcen strength, people. :P don't say I didn't warn you.

**Disclaimer**: if you came here looking for the most pointless and fluff-inspiring Fanfic that Scarab Dynasty has ever written in her life then you've come to the right place. If you came here looking for the legalised owner of Ace Lightning and all related characters (and possibly some free merchandise) them I'm afraid you're in the wrong place. Random Virus isn't copyrighted to me… unfortunately. And even if he WAS open to the public I expect **Hyperpsychomaniac** would hog him :P. She also owns the idea of the kitten. (Known fanonically as Sprocket.)

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Sprocket. 

Scarab Dynasty.

He draws his claw back slowly, focusing intently on the gash it leaves behind. The harder he concentrates on nothing-much-important in the next ten minutes, the less likely it is he'll find himself fighting with his own head again. Springs and cogs spatter around him. Not _again_… he's just finished fiddling with that engine when his evil side decided that it was too damn weak to deserve being fixed.

And that's when… when "it" topples out of the back seat.

"It" is rather difficult to describe. The only words which really come to mind are "small, greyish coloured… thing". It bears a slight resemblance to the sort of creatures you found in the sixth dimension, only that world would never dream of creating something so obviously feeble.

'What in the name of Zoar…'

The fuzzball untangles itself from it's own paws and sits there, pawing with the dirt.

'Alright, you pitiful little creature, what do you want?'

It sits on the ground, scratches its ear. Apparently it doesn't want anything. Maybe it was damaged when he smashed into the car?

'Mew.'

Apparently not. If nothing else, it's audio still works.

Random peers curiously around the door of the half-wrecked vehicle. It's a new car. As new as the wrecks get in this place, anyway. A large cardboard package sits on the back seat with the words "Sou-Ling Takeaway" on the side. It looks as if it's been scratched open with small claws.

It decides to play on his wheel. Correction, it decides to use his wheel as a scratching post. This is strangely entertaining. Strangely dangerous too. Random gives it a prod trying to force it away but it uses the opportunity to grab hold of his sleeve. It's teeth still work too. Luckily Random doesn't feel pain.

He runs out of patience, or more aptly, the surprise of finding something grey, fuzzy and alive in a car in the junkyard wears off at last.

'Get out you worthless scrap of hair!'

A yell, a snap of the claw and a three-foot drop to the ground (how the hell did it land on it's feet after that anyway?) is all the warning the kitten needs. It scrabbles in the dirt and scampers away into the wreckage. He figures that it's not stupid enough to return.

He's dead wrong. This creature is, without a doubt, the most stupid example of its species to date.

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Half an hour later, a small, grey, fuzzy figure stalks clumsily between the shattered remains of a barbeque.

'What do you _want_?'

Blue eyes blink at him obscurely. The kitten stalks past him, rubbing its fur against his wheel. It starts trying to scramble back into the car wreckage. It can't. It's too short to get back in the way it came out.

It's looking at him. Its eyes are huge and unblinking. They sort of remind him of…

Oh, holy Zoar, a kitten reminds him of his best friend.

_Forget the Lightning Knight, the pitiful excuse for a hero has never been your friend._

Friendship is weakness. As is this… creature. He should crush it as all things weak and mortal should be crushed.

For now, the kitten gets lucky as Random finds he can blink back the red in his right eye. 'You really are one stupid little furball, you know that?'

The kitten doesn't seem to know ANYTHING much. He shouldn't be talking to this thing, anyway. It's not as if it can distinguish a single word he's saying.

'Fine, fine, play with the cars all you want. Just don't expect me to get out alive out when I throw a door at you.'

The kitten seems happy enough. It goes back to chasing it's tail. Random watches it, his evil side quietly resolving to rip it to shreds should it chance coming near him again. It stops eventually and looks at him.

'Mew,' it says again. He figures this is synonymous for "go on, chase me. I dare you."

'And this is ALL you say, I suppose?' he says, dryly.

The kittens ears prick, it's fur bristles. 'Mew, mew!'

'Oh, forgive me, I stand corrected.'

The un-defeat-able Random Virus is playing sarcastic with a kitten. Well, if he wasn't convinced the world was ending before he sure is now.

He sighs, picks the kitten up in his remaining hand and drops in unceremoniously onto the car seat. The kitten isn't displeased with this result as it stalks back to its cardboard box.

Random lets it be.

* * *

politely requests some R&R's while privately wondering if she's ever live down the fluff 


	9. Construction

I've been writing Random-centric quite a lot, lately, haven't I? Well, he needs some more fics doing anyway... Just a lil fic circulating Random's "creation" at the hands of a young designer who wants originality, but has no real idea what it is.

Betaed (quickly) by **Sarah Frost**. (Thank you, Sarah )

* * *

Construction. 

Scarab Dynasty.

'It's perfect.' He scans the paper a glance before giving his verdict. 'Good design, decent framework, not too hard to program either, Go with it.'

He had the tone of somebody who really just couldn't be bothered to go over it one more time, and even thought it got on Zeke's nerves, he could sort of understand why. But still, he looked at the figure on the paper, and he knew it wasn't right. It wasn't what he wanted.

And Rick must have noticed the look on his co-workers face. 'Oh for crying out… what don't you like about it NOW, Zeke?'

'…He's a Lightning Knight.'

Rick groaned, his fists clenching around a copy of the day's meeting schedule. '_Yes_, that IS your design department, Zeke. Lightning Knight Main-Character Design, phase one construction and the rest.'

'But… but that's just it, isn't it? He's just a Lightning Knight.'

'I repeat: that's exactly the point. You think they're calling this game "Ace _Lightning_" just for the hell of it? The sketch is fine. We're using it.' He tried to snatch the paper, but didn't realise that Zeke still had his hand on the corner. Didn't realise, that is, until Zeke's grip tightened and the brief struggle for possession ended with the sound of ripping.

'Rick!'

'Oh… oh crap!' Rick tossed the torn drawing back on Zeke's desk.

'Looks like it's not going into production after all…'

Rick rubbed a hand across his eyes. He left behind a black mark from the still damp ink of the sketch, but Zeke opted not to tell him. 'great. Just great. This is not my day… Look kid, redraw that… that thing and get it to me in the next hour, okay?

'But… Look, I can't…'

He was going to lose it. Definitely. Zeke can tell. Anything he says now might just lose him his job so he keeps his mouth shut, no matter how much he wants to start ranting on about boring old military Lightning Knights and stuck up production teams. 'Listen, we've got three days to get these final sketches and 3D figures done so we can start running prototypes through the simulator. If we don't have anything to show the head of department by this evening then the agency is slashing our funding.What are you trying to do, kid? Bankrupt us?'

Zeke still didn't answer. It was best not to start talking to Rick about money. He always got so uptight when it came to the budget.

'Listen, Zeke… if you WANT to be a part of this game, you're going to have to stop going all lone-ranger and start acting like a part of the team. That means obeying me and only me, twenty four seven, all the time. Capiché?'

'Um… absolutely?'

'Good,' Rick's expression calmed a little. 'That's good. At least we're starting to understand each other. Now, I'll be waiting in the production room. Get your drawing sorted and get in there. Stat. We want a Lightning Knight, okay? Nothing fancy just… just make him a little different to the other two and it'll be fine. I just need a last character, I mean is a tiny fraction of your concentration all that much to ask? We lose our new sponsorship and it's your ass going out that door.'

The door to the communal office slams shut as Rick leaves, still unaware that he's leaving black ink smudges on stuff as he touches it. He really didn't need to slam it like that, since the office had those automatic door-closing... things installed, but he does it anyway. Zeke reaches out to grab a prototype model of a Lightning Lance before it falls off his desk.

Crap…

New sponsorship…to hell with the sponsors.

He went back to staring at his paper –now ripped, smudged and missing half a face– and thinking about how much he hated it. This guy was just like the others. The ideal personified. Another Knight, daring to "_do right at all times_" (and also acting as the guardian of a convenient energy restore and auto-save point for the playable-characters.)

Well, it didn't seem to matter anyway. This picture wasn't fit for any final drafting now. The ink had blurred over the picture, it was all creased up and the image was missing half an eye.

Damn.

Or maybe not…

The figure on the paper was incomplete now, but actually it was sort of an improvement… Rick had ripped up his features a little, made him look a little less like all those other hackneyed, military-type designs. He'd had enough of those with the last company he worked with.

What had been their project name again? _Deathstryke 3_? He'd barely bothered committing the name to memory, he's worked in about a dozen of those places and the story's always the same: just a bunch of so-called experts trying to turn out the goriest videogame possible in a space of six months. Sure, Zeke was all up for horror and special effects, but since when did "RPG _strategy_" games consist of eighty percent blowing stuff up, fifteen percent finding weapons and five percent waiting at dodgy loading screens? He pitied the poor guys who'd been doing the testing.

Though now that he thought about it, he remembered them actually kind of _enjoying_ it… and the public had _loved_ _Deathstryke 3_. _Loved_ it. The game had sold in its billions. _Deathstryke 4_ was in production right then, even has he sat there fretting about his latest character design.

"_Fear them. Fight them. Destroy them first." _He scribbles absentmindedly on the corner of the paper without really knowing why he's doing it.

"Fear them. Fight them. Destroy them first"_ – _The Deathstryke tagline. Kind of ironic, Zeke realised, now that he thought about the motto they were supposedly sticking in the cut scene for _Ace Lightning_. "Do Right and Fear Not."

"Nice and kid friendly," Damien had called it. Nice and goddamn simple, more like. They should've hired better writers. At least _Deathstryke 3_ had had a half decent "aliens make a giant circus out of earth" plotline going. Not that anyone had cared that much about the plot. Nobody ever watches the cut scenes. They just want to get onto the next level and back to blowing stuff up as quickly as possible. Until he landed a job in this business he had been exactly the same. It wasn't real, right? Why bother watching a story when it wasn't even real and wasted time that was better spent shooting the aliens?

It wasn't real. Yeah. Sometimes Zeke thought maybe that was the most frightening thing about these games. That they were fiction and reality was worse. At least in the videogames nobody ever got hurt. Not really.

He pulled himself out of the daydream and back to the not-so-soft reality of having forty-five minutes to turn out a character or lose his job.

He stared at the paper where the page was ripped away, and the figure who had lost half his face. He got to thinking about the first bad guy he ever designed for _Deathstryke_. He remembered a torn up face and steely claws and eyes that flashed like lights in a nightmare.

Zeke traced the lines where the paper had ripped, and realised that he really, really didn't want to change this guy back into another Lightning Knight. He was better than that.

He remembered what Rick said to him: _"we want a Lightning Knight, okay? Nothing fancy just… just make him a little different."_

He picked up the trusty Grade-3 and started to draw, scribbling away on top of the old, smudged drawing.

* * *

Whatever soft, gentle lines were left from the previously smiling (and now kind of mutilated) face, Zeke rubbed them out and started again. He needed to be older, he decides first of all. Not too old, just old enough so you could tell he was around before Ace was. He remembered the guy who used to sell him the paper on the street outside the office. How he'd had one of those faces that was all… all hard and angry when Zeke handed him a quarter. The kind of face you get when you're disillusioned with life and everything about it. That's the kind of face he wanted this new Knight to have. 

And the smile – he gets rid of that too. That line was too soft. Too subtle. This guy wasn't supposed to look that way this time. If he didn't watch where he was drawing these lines, then his design would just end up looking like Ace Lightning. This character wasn't supposed to be like that. This one was supposed to be different. At the place where Rick tore through the paper, he reshapes the Lightning Knight's face. He rubs out the uniform and starts again with a trench coat and broken wrist cannons.

Wait a sec, he stopped himself, wasn't he trying to get AWAY from all the military stuff? If anything all this… metal was taking it closer.

_The wheels are too much… _

_Maybe I should go with tank treads… No, wait that's worse… _

_But leave him on foot and he looks like some kind of mechanical solider… Yeah, that's worse still…'_

Zeke switched pencil for ink, dragging a biro (unprofessional, but it worked) across the paper, marking out the shading of the metal, carving out the hard, angular shapes where his arm was supposed to be.

_No, not like that. This guy's not like that. He's not that sure of himself. It's not all "Do Right and Fear Not" for him. He's more… random than that. Have him switch back and forth all the time. Like a traffic light. _He stops himself suddenly, trying to decide whether or not that description sounds… dorky. He figures that it does, but what the hey, they need SOMETHING to tell them whether he's good or bad.

_Green light go, red light stop._

_…That'll work.

* * *

_

Zeke jumped when a fellow employee's hand touched his shoulder. He'd been so wrapped up in what he was doing he hadn't heard her come it. She told him he was expected in the production room, apparently on threat of death if he didn't arrive in the next two minutes.

Zeke finally paused and looked down at his "Lightning Knight"

He kept on looking at it for kind of a long time and was late getting into the production room.

* * *

'Zeke, what the hell is this?' Zeke would never forget the look on Rick Hummel's face when he held the paper (with the ink blow dried with the hand dryer in the lavatory, just to be safe) out towards him as said it was the final draft. It was priceless. Or maybe terrifying. He wasn't totally sure which. 'I asked for a Lightning Knight, we're already done with the freaks!' 

'He is a Lightning Knight.'

'Oh, really? You wanna explain to me how? You've really done it this time, Zeke, I swear… I mean look at this!'

Zeke looked at his picture – even though he'd sat for fifteen minutes in his office earlier doing just that. For the umpteenth time he examines the claw and the metal and the cold, hardness of the face that started out looking like all the others.

He took a deep breath, and gave Rick the "how" he'd asked for. He didn't explain _everything_, of course. He left out some of it. Like he decided NOT to tell him about most of the backstory he'd got planned, and all the messy bits that would probably mean they had to up the game rating. And how he wanted to find some way to work him into a PC role. And that he thought his guy might actuallybe a better match in the current romance plot they'd got going. Because all that was just his crazy brain going into overdrive, and Rick looked on the brink of firing him as it was. As much as he wanted his place in this "team", he also wanted that pay check.

'So… Angry looking guy, isn't it?

'ANGRY?' Rick snorted. 'If you think _he_ looks bad wait until I show this to the directors. I mean these expression files will be a NIGHTMARE to compress… And what is with that… that _thing_?' He jabbed at something in the picture. 'You expect us to animate that hunk of unnecessary data?'

'The claw is the best part!' Zeke argued. He really thought so too. Things just hadn't been gelling at all in his head at first, what with knowing what he wanted to do but not how to do it. And then the claw came out, and that really sort of set his drawing apart. It was that point when he realised what he wanted to draw and what he wanted his character to be.

Rick didn't seem to agree. 'Rick, seriously, it's not THAT bad… a couple of extra bytes, that's all he needs… and maybe a few little plot modifications, but the writers can work around that.'

Rick stayed silent for a moment. Zeke was almost tricked into thinking he was actually considering his point. 'Hoffman… I am seriously supposed to believe that this… _thing_ is the best friend of our superhero, huh?'

'It'll work won't it? I mean there's good in him too. He's just mixed up.' He tapped the paper, drawing attention to the only part of the image that had been done in colour –some red ink dabbed across the Cyborg's right eye. 'See, he's got this new-fangled program thing going… it's not a _bad_ thing, really, it… just makes him do bad things. You know, he doesn't know what's right or wrong. He's not totally sure what he should be doing and why he should be doing it from one minute to the next.'

'Kind of like YOU, I figure,' Rick snorted. The comment didn't really mean anything but Zeke couldn't help but take it personally.

'I'm not saying that… I'm saying that's what people are like. _Real_ people. Humans.'

Rick grunted. 'What, prone to being nice as pie one minute and ripping each other apart with hulking bits of metal the next?'

'Yes.' Zeke felt so sure of himself at first, but when Rick gave him THAT you-are-this-close-to-pay-cut look, he feels a little less confident. 'Um… I mean…'

The thing was, Rick's expression kind of… changed when he said that. In a weird way, Zeke figured that Rick actually agreed with him for once. It wasn't something he was all that happy about, but he agreed with him nonetheless…

'Look, don't you think the plot needs more work? Some whacked out cyborg like Random Virus might be just what we need.'

'Kids don't _care_ about the plot, Zeke. They care about the shooting and the swordplay and… and the blowing stuff up, not— wait a sec, Random Virus?'

'Yes.'

'I thought his name was…' Rick cuts himself off, slapping his own forehead, as if reminding himself that he doesn't really care. 'Okay… forget I said that. Fine. The programmers are going to go totally to hell about this…'

Rick was right. He was usually right, especially when he was being cynical. The programmers DID go to hell about it, but to be totally honest the writers were even worse. They had to rewrite seven drafts of cut scenes to accommodate this guy. They hadn't had any choice.

* * *

It was the first time in a long while that Zeke had actually stopped to watch a cut scene when he saw Random Virus in action for the first time. 

'I thought we were going for the heroic trio approach?' he heard someone muttering at the back of the room, but nobody else said anything. Especially not while Random Virus was ripping holes in metal walls and wires. Ten minutes later he was being thumped on the back by a hero and the cut scene was coming to an end. And all the way through it there was the light –the flickering from red to green that Zeke had wanted. It actually worked kind of well, despite the reference to traffic lights.

Still… No wonder the programming department had complained about this scene.

The cut scene ended, the screen became dark and up went the lights. A few minutes later people were muttering their compliments and the next days schedule was being arranged. And then someone else started babbling on about merchandise. If anything, Zeke knows his Virus would make an interesting action figure.

He was the last to leave his seat. Rick was standing at the back of the room, staring at his watch and shaking his head, and Zeke opts to ignore him.

* * *

**Reviews much** **appreciated. Concrit even more so.**


	10. Identified Flying Object

Most people will recall the events of UFS, and here's a possible take on that episode from one character's POV. Inspired by **Hyperpsychomaniac's** comments in the message board..

**Disclaimer**: Brief, so I see no point in dragging out the fact that I don't own these guys until the disclaimer is longer than the story. They're not mine.

* * *

Identified. 

Scarab Dynasty.

I saw her once, you know.

I guess I was too hyped by the experience or something to realise it at the time. It wasn't until later, when I was playing her level in the Nevershine Mines (you know, the zone in level three with the underground speed-race and all the killer stalactites?) that I figured out that what I saw that day wasn't what I'd thought it was. Nuh-uh. Not at all. Not even close.

Well… maybe a _little_ close. I guess they DID come here from another world, sort of, And she WAS flying, like you'd think an alien would… I know that sounds kinda obvious but hey, flying vehicles don't fall outta the sky at you every day, right? I had to call it SOMETHING. UFO seemed the most obvious thing. Brett suggested it. If he believed it, chances were other people would too.

I never told Mark. I don't think he ever realised. I wanted to tell him, really. Tell him that was I saw was no UFO or space alien or whatever I acted like it was in front of the cameras. Nope. What I saw was a Lightning Flash. And her. Only I thought he wouldn't believe me, so I kept my mouth shut. Just like he did, I guess. Maybe if I'd actually said something, it might've been different.

It's a bit of a downer, knowing that he kept that secret from me for so long. I mean, how long have I known him? And how long have I been playing that game anyway? Nobody would've believed me, so I went alone with the whole gig about UFO's and aliens. The press seemed to buy it, and the radio talks were really cool (AND got me outta soccer – I mean I was only there cause Mark was, anyway, well...that and my mom had my allowance wagered on me being able to keep up in a team sport. The radio was more fun. The way those guys in the studios went on at me you'd think I'd saved the world or somethingThey kept asking me all this stuff about what I'd seen and how it felt to nearly get abducted and probed and... yeah, okay, a lot of them were exaggerrating.

There was this one guy working for Radio 5 live? He just totally creeped me out. He had one of these twitchy faces, the kindthat looks about ten years older than it really is? And he kept on laughing for no reason. Like when I was telling him about how the hubcaps (they WERE hubcaps, right?) of that thing nearly cracked my head open… I mean what's so funny about that? It could've really hurt!

Anyway, he kept on asking me if I was scared when it happened. And I said I was creeped… only I wasn't telling the truth. Sure, I was freaked at the time but… later I sorta realised that even if what I saw had been weird, it hadn't been an alien. I'd just seen a superhero. I'd just seen her.

And that's sorta okay, really, isn't it? I mean, how many other thirteen-year-old kids can say that?

* * *

Yup, that's it. Anyone see the point? There's one in there, trust me. Concrit is appreciated, particuarly given it's length. 


	11. Rainfall

Drabble challenge from **Sarah Frost**: 6D, a rainy day, word "peace". Involve at least three characters--only two of whom can have talked to each other in canon.

I am taking liberties herein thatthe 6D only features in the context of the old 6D-merging-with-Real-world fanon theory.

**Disclaimer** - Ace Lightning and all related characters are not my property. In this case, I can't even claim the germ of this fic.

**

* * *

**

Rainfall.

Scarab Dynasty.

She knew at the time that she'd been caught up in something big. She just never figured out what. Everything had been so insane all around her; she hadn't had time to think about it.

And she's still not quite sure how she ended up at the carnival. Why she came _here, _of all places. The school would probably have been a safer bet, or city hall, or the mall, or even sitting around at home. But she didn't go to any of those places. Everyone was in the same damn mess no matter where they went. In the last public shelter there'd been anger and yelling and apprehensive glances and small kids, squirming and acting up as their parents tried to keep hold of them, and nobody had actually been DOING anything, except for standing around and looking worried. She doesn't want to be surrounded by people like that. People who just don't have a clue what's happening.

Fine. Let them stand around and wait for answers. She wasn't going to wait.

But still,that doesn't explain why she chose to head for the carnival. Gut instinct, she figures.

She's not usually one for going with her gut, especially not when the facts are screaming at her to do the opposite. Facts are solid, and useful, and less likely to let your down than instinct alone. Facts always have something backing them up –usually, anyway, (and when they don't, she's not interested in them). Facts are something she can count on to be the truth, no matter what else is happening.

At least, that's how it was always supposed to work. Which it isn't. Which is probably why she's now feeling so mixed up and alone and… and…

And angry. Yeah, anger has a lot to do with it, too. That's the reason why she ran away. Because only an idiot would stand still and just let things like that happen to them. She's not an idiot. She won't be treated like one. Even if the facts have suddenly decided they don't want to play to her rules anymore.

Well, to hell with them. To hell with the news reporters and television crews and the military and thestupid government representatives on television. To hell with all the guys on television, telling people to stay calm and composed and then having the signal ripped apart and the picture on the screen replaced by some mutant freak.

She's walking down the midway, the mud ruining her shoes, and she wonders for the umpteenth time what she's doing here. The bright colours of the carnival aren't so bright anymore and the place is completely abandoned. Things are… strange. Hazy where they should be clear and clear where they should be hazy. Something splashes against her face. Is it raining?

That's it. Of course it's raining. Only it doesn't _feel_ like rain anymore. It still _looks_ that way and it still makes mud curdle under her feet. But it doesn't feel like _normal_ rain should feel. It's dry instead of wet and warm instead of cold. She holds out her hand and lets a "droplet" fall onto her palm. It bursts and trickles over her skin, like rain does, but it trickles as what seems to be a mess of ones and zeros. Turquoise and green instead of transparent, like it was in the air.It's quieter than rain usually is, too. She can't hear any thunder even though she feels she should.

She's scared.

No she's not, she tells herself. She's not scared, she's mad. And she's freaked. And she all messed up because this in NOT how she was supposed to be spending her weekend. It's the third Saturday of the month. Sam is supposed to be coming home and they're meeting up in town so that Heather can tell her what's happening in the dreary little town of Conestoga while she's off learning this top-notch curriculum at Westleaf boarding school.

Her stomach lurches. Sam. Where is she? Had she left for home before this happened?

Crap. Not good. This is not good at all.

She stands still, takes deep breaths and tries to compose herself. She thinks about reassuring things, like how quiet it is right now, and how there's a strange kind of peace in the dark and the warm, unreal rain. The calm before the storm. Or the calm in the middle of it, more like. The air crackles with electricity even though there's been no lightning. The clouds don't look right. They're supposed to be dull and grey, and yet they're strewn with patches of silver andgreen and god knows what else. It's strange, and wrong. Everything's wrong.

She hates this. But she grits her teeth and stumbles on through the mud with no idea where she's going or why she wanted to be here. What did she come here expecting? Answers?

Maybe she did. Whenever anything weird happens in this city, it always comes back to the carnival . This was where their old science teacher finally lost his mind. And where that jerk Hollander hung out playing his stupid hero games. And where that… that disgusting, mutant thing, attacked her one night.

Something scurries across the muddy dirt in front of her. It's probably a rat, she tells herself, but it doesn't _look_ like one. Last time she checked, rats weren't green and didn't have feet the size of their heads. It scrambles over the grey-green dirt and vanishes. Just… vanishes, in a way nothing is supposed to vanish. It's like it disappears into a hole in the world. She reaches after it: one, shaking foot passing through the hole in the air where the "rat" had gone. Her foot seems to evaporate for a moment, and comes back crackling with pins and needles. She stares around her. It's like the rain has washed away everything, even the bright, carnival-type colours. Great. Just great. Lovely atmospshere.

This is the way it looks no matter where you are in Conestoga Hills right now. Freaks emerging from nowhere. Computers and television pictures all screwed up. Strange skies and rain that isn't really rain. When she forced Chuck to pull over to the sidewalk and let her out of the car in the middle of the city, the sky above her had looked just the same as it does now. As she ran back the way they'd came, with Chuck yelling at her not to be so stupid, she'd seen _things _just like that rat, crawling out of walls and sidewalks.

Stupid? How _dare_ he, who the hell did he think he was? She's Heather Hoffs. She knows what she's talking doing. If she wanted to go somewhere, she went. She doesn't need some computer whiz kid acting like a babysitter.

She doesn't see it lying there until she stands on it and hears a crack. She reaches down, picks it up and wipes away the dirt, trying to make out the faded brand-mark. It's a mobile phone. Not the best one out there, but good enough for someone not to just drop it in the mud and forget about it. It must've just been left behind less than a minute ago, so maybe it's owner is coming back to get it. If they dare to, which they probably won't. Not now.

When the screen lights up and it starts ringing she takes a second to answer it.

'Kid, is that you?' The voice on the end of the line is a female, sharp and urgent.

She doesn't answer, but waits for the woman to start talking again. She doesn't have to wait long. Whoever it is, they sound impatient.

'You're there, right? What in oblivion are you doing? Ace is worried and things are going nuts round here… not to mention out _there_!'

Heather keeps quiet. That's not really the logical thing to do, she knows. She should really say something and make sure they figure out she's not the person they want, before she hears something she doesn't want to hear. But then, just what COULD she hear anyway? What important stuff could you get from some kid's phone, dropped in the dirt in the middle of chaos?

'Okay can we just skip with the freaking me out, kid? We have trouble. The bad guy's whacked; he's talking about doing… doing all kinds of stuff. You don't want the details just… you have to get back here right now so we can find the others and get this fixed. Mark, are you even _listening_ to me?'

…Mark?

Hell. What're the odds?

'Who's there?' Heather's breath catches in her throat. When she replayed the event later on in her mind, she would probably edit that bit out. The woman doesn't answer, but Heather knows she's still there. 'Mark Hollander. That's who you're looking for, isn't it? I know him.' Still no answer. 'Who are you, damn it, why're you looking for him?'

There's the sound of muttering on the line. High pitched and anxious. Something about a 'wrong number.' Heather swears out loud and doesn't care a jot about phone manners.

'...Listen, if you're looking for Mark, I can't help you, I don't know where he is. But maybe you have some answers for me.'

'Uh, okay. So if he's not there, why d'you have his phone?'

Mark's a common name, Heather thinks. There were what? Four of them in her year at high school? Yet for some reason she'll probably work out the logic behind later, she makes the connection with Hollander, and now she gets the feeling she's right. Figures. He would be in on all this. 'I found it. Does it even matter? Who are you?'

'You first.'

Heather hesitates. It's not a good idea to give out your details to random strangers on someone else's phone. Even if they're female and sound… normal enough, and you're both smack bang in the middle of what feels like the set of a twisted animated movie. And a bad one at that.

She tells the woman her name and realizes that she's going with her gut again. Sometimes she hates her instincts.

'Right… okay, Heather. I… look, maybe you can help me out here.'

Someone else is muttering in the background. For once, Heather keeps her mouth shut. There's this weird rumbling scream somewhere in the distance that doesn't sound anything like thunder. Things seem to darken all around her and a chill lances right up Heather's spine. Stupid cold.

'Erm… where are you?'

'I'm… I'm at the Kent Carnival.'

'You're… not at one of those emergency hold up places? Mark said that that's where everyone's going.'

'No, I'm not I—' she pauses. She doesn't want to explain what she's doing here. She CAN'T explain it, anyway. There's no logical explanation she could give. '…I'm just not.'

'Why not?' There's a kind of innocent curiosity in the woman's voice that surprises her. Doesn't she have any idea how stupid it is for some kid to be out in a storm in a carnival in the middle of… of whatever the hell is happening to this city? Is she for real?

'Because…' Heather grits her teeth. '…Look, it doesn't matter why I'm not, and it's none of your business anyway just… start talking.'

'Okay, okay... is Mark with you?'

'_No_, he's not, I just _said_ didn't I?' Heather loses her patience. 'And is anyone going to tell me what the hell is going on here?'

'Um… I'm not sure you wanna know. But it's bad. It's really, _really_ bad… and the amulet… she paused. Um… hey, you can forget about that, it's not really important now anyway.'

'What are you _talking_ about?' Heather snaps, and for a moment, shewonders if she really wants to know.

'…It was never about the amulet.' The woman says after a while. There's a sound like a frustrated sigh. 'We should've known… it was just a decoy. We just… we thought he wanted the amulet. Like he did last time. Like he ALWAYS does. But… but there was more power than that, and he knew it all along. He knew how to mix the worlds. We just…. We didn't think that made sense. We didn't think he's KNOW…'

Heather gets the feeling her conversationalist friend is waffling . As if she, just like everyone else, is trying to make sense of a situation that makes no sense at all. Suddenly an image flashes in Heather's mind that she can't understand or explain. It's an image of a red headed girl with angry, frustrated eyes and pink energy sparkling behind them. She quickly shakes the image out of her mind. She's had enough of freak-outs.

'I think you need to get out of there, kid,' the woman says at last. 'This is stupid. I shouldn't have asked you for help, I…' There's another worrying silence.

_She knows something_, Heather thinks. _She knows something big. What'll it take to make her tell?_ She feels something thudding behind her ribs. 'Who ARE you?' she asks.

'Name's Sparx.' The voice says after a moment.

Sparx? What is that, some kind of alias? Was this straight out of a science fiction set or something? Heather bites her lip. She's never been into the science fiction field of things. She was always more of an action fan.

She instantly admonishes herself for thinking like that. This isn't some stupid movie; it's real life, a real world. Her world. And just because things don't seem to be working the way they should doesn't mean she should start looking at all this like some out-of-synch motion picture.

'…I want to help, Sparx.'

'Yeah well, so do we,' Sparx sounds angry. No, more than angry. She sounds as if she wants to kill something. Maybe her name –alias… whatever– is an apt one. 'And that's what we're going to try do. When I get hold of those freaks I am _so _going to kick their butts, mark my words.'

Heather opens her mouth to ask a question, and something cold and wet closes around her ankle.

For just a second, the pounding noise inside of her stops, and Heather barely looks down in time to see the pink, rotting glare of long-dead eyes. She can't believe she didn't see it sooner. Can't believe she didn't know it was there. That THEY were there, because there are more of them now, freaks without names, crawling out from every corner of the carnival.

She screams. Tears her foot away, bringing the creature's severed limb with it.

'Leave it.' Something else winds around her wrist. Not a rotting hand, this time. But just as icy cold, and it doesn't break when she tries to tug back. The mutants around her shudder and retreat. Heather whirls and her eyes widen on what she sees. 'It's just another mortal. I'll deal with it now.'

Heather lets go of the phone and it drops back into in the mud.

After a while it cuts off, then it rings again, with nobody there to answer it.

* * *

Ending dodgy, but oh well. Concrit much appreciated. 


	12. Reward

**Disclaimer**: Own nothing, claim nothing.

Most of you have read this, but I realised I might as well post it. It was enjoyable writing and an explanation is needed for this event, I reckon. And this is as good a one as any. I also can't see Mark starting out that able with it, at the start.

* * *

Reward. 

Scarab Dynasty.

'And what's this thing for, exactly?'

'Duh –it's for firing, kid, it's a wrist cannon isn't it?' Sparx watched him as he took the strange new item out of her hand.

A Bonus Prize, for completing the level, maybe? That was what Ace seemed to think.

'But… this doesn't make any sense.'

'Why not?'

Mark paused. He couldn't explain why not, he just knew that it didn't. it was a Lightning Knight weapon. he was a mortal. How was he supposed to use it anyway?

'Look… what is this thing, anyway?'

Ace looked at it for a moment. 'Wrist cannon, class 1-A-B. Standard issue for under graduates, I think.' Ace muttered. Sparx shrugged in agreement.

'Yeah… we're way past that level, anyway. Those things take like, no power at all to operate. Even a mortal could handle that thing.'

'So, if it was sent for us I expect it would've been something more powerful,' Ace explained what Sparx is trying to say before Mark could take offence. 'Uh, not that that thing couldn't do a fair bit of damage in the right… or, wrong hands, that is.' He cast a wary glance at Sparx, who looked away. Mark wondered if there was maybe a story behind this.

'Hey you need something to actually shoot, kid, metal bars aren't gonna work forever.' Sparx said. It looked as if she was getting bored of all the fuss being made about some undergraduate training weapon. 'Try it. Go on, it's not gonna bite you.'

He figured that maybe she was right. It didn't look that dangerous, anyway. More like plastic than metal. He pulled it onto his arm –right handed, he realised. That was annoying, but he figured he could get used to it.

'It fits,' he said quietly, actually feeling kind of surprised. It was almost as if it'd been made for him, as if it belonged right there. It _felt_ like metal, too, despite the way it looked, and was heavier on his wrist than he'd expected it to be. 'But it feels right handed.'

'So?'

'So, I'm left.'

'Wha?' Sparx frowns at that. Maybe they're only programmed to be right handed where she comes from. 'That's weird…. Try shooting at the wall, that should be okay.'

Standard issue, right? What harm could it—

Before his sentence finished, his fingers closed on the pressure bar at the front of the glove, and something like static burst through his fingertips. He was tightening his grip without meaning to before he even registered what was happening. Something burning hot raced up his arm, searing his bones as if came from inside of him as much as it did from the metal itself. A sharp pain shooting right up into his skull and right down into his stomach at the same time. The pain lasted for only a second before it exploded outwards.

Sparx moved. Not a millisecond too soon. Something blue and explosive slams into the des where she was sitting and briefly sets it alight. A few seconds later they're choking on smoke.

Yeah. It was supposed to be right handed.

'Um… Mark… the wall is over Ithere/I, kid.'

'Right… I figured.'

'I think it works,' Sparx said, bluntly.

'…I think we're going to have to work on his aim.'

Yes I had another one of aforementioned drabble which is chocked with more innuendoes than you can count but I decided not to subject you to it. :P is immature


	13. Unreal

**Drabble Challenge: (Feardantane) Mark finds out that Kat has secretly been having a relationship with Sparx. **

**This is slightly PWP. I think… I'm not entirely sure what the rules on context are with PWP's. I'm not mad about utilising Kat in my fic and normally avoid her except where necessary, but I figure since this is a challenge… And they're both probably OOC and… **

**Yeah, either way, I'm going to go stand in the corner now, out of sniper range, please R & R. Kill me, if you feel you must. **

**Disclaimer: Ace Lightning and everything related … no doubt Odell and Leggatt will be relieved about that.**

* * *

Unreal.

Scarab Dynasty.

Not a person. '_Not really, anyway_.' That'd what she had said, the first time they ever talked about Them. And even though he'd agreed with her, she'd still got the impression that Mark felt kind of annoyed. But then she could see why he'd gotten confused. So had she, at first. And then of course there came all the fighting (which took place as much on a personal level as it did in the battlefields).

'Yeah. They seem real. They act real. Only real people can do stuff they can't do… and can't do stuff that they can. Like… hitting a ping-pong ball at a hundred miles per hour. Real people don't have… programs or whatever keeping them in order. So that means she's not a person, right?'

Or maybe she is. She sure acts like one. And more besides. But calling her a "real" person is one step further than Kat's prepared to take it.

Besides, she's seen more than Mark has. Or NOT seen more, depending on how you look at it.

'Do you ALWAYS have it up?' she'd asked.

'Huh? What?' she stopped bouncing the ping-pong ball against the wall and looked at her.

'Your hair? Short. Up. Do you always have it like that?'

'I don't know. I never really thought about it.'

'You should change it. Do something new. Redhead's look better when it's long.' The ping-pong call starts bouncing again.

'Yeah, well, so should you.'

'Excuse me?'

'Yeah… I mean yours is like... worms or something.'

'Worms?' she frowned. She didn't look like that right? This took her about half an hour to do every morning. 'There's nothing wrong with it!'

'Not if you're trying to look like one of those siren things from Mount Doom.' There was a snigger, she heard her sitting back in the chair, and leaving the ping-pong ball to bounce away under the table Kat was sitting on.

'Well at least I bother to change it now any then. Look I'll show you.'

She reached over the chair from behind and grabbed the other woman's hair tie. Only when she pulled it didn't budge. In fact it was hard to get a grip of it at all. Like trying to touch something in a dream when it's only sort of there. 'Oh… right…'

'Right what?' her head leaned back over the chair and gazed at her, upside-down.

'Nothing.'

* * *

'_It's the same for her sleeves and her jeans and everything else,'_ Kat tries to tell herself. There's no skin. They're just programmed shells that think they're real. So why should she assume there was anything else underneath? 

'So what?' she asked, when Kat pointed that out. 'Even if there isn't, we'll work with what we've got.'

'What's there to work with?'

'You tell me.'

Then there's a pause for a second or two before the woman presses her lips against Kat's.

It's kind of what Kat was expecting. It's how it worked in that movie she saw not long before the evacuation started. Only in that, the red head had been a guy. And she figures it probably didn't involve this much static for the people in the movie.

'_Ow…'_

And it turns out the polo neck isn't like her hair was after all. It's more like material than she expected it to be, and… yeah, there's definitely skin under there. It's still not _normal. _She didn't expect it to be. She'd expected something unreal but this… this was just…

'_Insane? Crazy? BEYOND unreal? _

_Or maybe too close to real for comfort. _

_Come on, Kat, this has ALWAYS been crazy. You knew from the start. Don't go getting all weirded out now.'_

And there'd always been this… odd link between them, too. She was the first one of Them Kat met. Well, the first one that wasn't trying to kill her, at least. The first of the good guys. She remembers all the questions she'd had to ask…

'_You and this Ace guy… are you, like, together?'_

…Especially that one.

She'd sounded kind of disappointed when she told Kat no.

It's been what? Ten years since then? And yet she still remembers that look._ 'That's just the way she's supposed to look. They were supposed to get together in the sequel right, but he went and fell in love with that… other lady with the green skin and messed everything up. It's a programmed reaction, right?' _

So if that's all true, she thinks to herself, how did they end up in this position anyway?

Okay, so she's not your typical human being. And she's not real, and she shouldn't be able to kiss like that. But what they're _doing_ now. That's perfectly normal isn't it? It's something humans do all the time, even these days, with the world falling to bits all around them. Even if she's not real. Who says she has to be? What else had she been expecting? Or wanting?

Well, it wasn't something he was supposed to see, for a start. But then, there's a lot she wishes he hadn't had to see. The end of the old world, for example. And his parents getting blasted, and then his best friend. So this should really have been nothing compared to all that, right?

'…_Who am I kidding? He's hates me. Us. And God knows how Ace is going to react._

_Not that that matters…'_

There's love, Kat thinks, and there's… love love, and she's not even all that sure if the program or whatever it is, is advanced enough to know the difference or if she knows either of them at all. And Kat wasn't sure whether or not this counts as instinct or something like that. But she knows this is something she used to feel for Mark, and now all that's changed. It's kind of hard knowing that the other woman is just a program.

'She doesn't feel anything. She just… thinks she does.'

But Kat feels something. And that's what matters, right?

Okay, so he doesn't exactly see it that way.

He's not as angry as she was expecting. Only thing is, that kind of makes her feel worse. Becauseall he's got left for her issomething worse than anger.But it's not like she can change the past, and she's never been the kind of just cut out of stuff in the present. She's not really a quitter. Neither of them are.

And the static doesn't hurt so much the next time, anyway.

* * *

**_Fin._ **

**Flame at will, people, I can take it. **


	14. The Tower Zone

**Challenge (Sarah Frost): AU, either non-canon relationship or canon relationship with an entirely different dynamic. Words: "wild", "help".**

* * *

The Tower Zone.

Scarab Dynasty.

He hadn't known the human girl that long, but he'd been around her enough to know she had one White Hot Oblivion of a temper.

But he wasn't going to let her go. Not this time. Oh no. She could stand there, screaming her head off and trying to dislodge the circuits in his claw all she liked; he was NOT letting her go.

'Listen to me, kid, you're going to get killed!'

'Let go of me!' she keeps pulling. And kicking too, not that she can do him that much damage. 'You jerk, you're not taking me back there!'

'Who's the jerk?' he winces, clutching his face where her fist found it's way around the metal plating that was closest to her. He realizes he probably seems pretty dam frightening this close up. 'I'm the one trying to help you.'

'Let go!'

'Not until you promise you won't run. ' He tightens his grip on her arm. 'Hey! Don't make me break this!'

'Oh for f… alright, I promise.' She mutters, adding a 'jerk,' as an afterthought when he finally lets go of her arm. But she did as she promised. She doesn't run. She just stands there scowling up at him through reddened eyes. 'How did you know?

'How do you THINK I knew? It was the roll call today, he said, simply. You weren't there. Your friends worried.'

'Why should you care? You should've just left me.'

'What? To wander out here? In the Tower Zone? What're you, crazy?'

'You can talk I've seen you out here enough!' he pauses for a second before his usual response to that statement kicks in.

'…Its official business.'

'Official WHAT? What's official about THIS place?' her eyes narrow into accusing pinpricks and she brandishes a hand at her surroundings – a labyrinth of steel mazes and abandoned parapets of the old city where she used to live. The occasional dim gold sweep of searchlights coming from the Thunder Tower. Trying to get from here to the other edge of the complex was damned impossible; she would have been shot dead in less than five semicycles. 'What kind of rights do you have anyway?'

He's not going to tell her, of course. She knows that.

Course the way her eyes burn into his skull like that, he half suspects he doesn't need to. That she can see right through the machine in his head. She's smart, no doubt about that. But not computer smart. Not machine smart. Not smart in a way that the freaks running the compound would find useful enough to have some special reason for keeping her alive.

Like they'd had him. He was _valuable to t_hem. He kept the mortals in the complex under control, he knew how to fight, when he needed to. He could hack through an enemies encrypted database faster than any of them and his suppressed bad program made a handy storage pit for any viruses that tried to infect him. What could she do? Sure she had a kick on her but that was about it, and a sharp tongue would get you nowhere in a place where only the strongest (and the cybernetically superior) survive.

She doesn't realise this. Then again, maybe she does. Maybe she knows they're only alive because of a few random Lightning Knights who were prepared to bend the rules, and that's the reason she's so angry.

'Uhuh… you know if you think I'm just going to give away academy secrets to any random person who asks, then you have another thing coming, mortal,' he mutters. 'And if you think decorating your speech with insults is going to help…'

'And since when was _I_ just some random mortal?'

He catches his breath in a half snort, half laugh. 'You all are, haven't you figured that out by now? They'll send you on the program if you keep running like this. You know that don't you. You think you could survive that?' She snorts too, but she sounds unimpressed and there's no laugh in her tone.

'Whoever thought up _that_ program should probably stand a mind-trial for ignorance and banality. Oh wait, of course. There's no such thing as a trial here, is there?'

'No, there isn't,' he ignores her sarcasm. 'But _mind_ trials – they're a different matter. Why don't you think about that next time you're planning on making a break for it into the Tower zone?'

'Whatever, I figure next time I try it they'll bring out the big guns,' she mutters, but he knows she's afraid under the mask of indifference.

'That one is mine – leave it alone before I feed you its bones': his standard line when it came to taking care of troublesome mortals.

They never assumed he might realise what his allies –his liberators, you might call them– are doing wrong. That sticking mortals in cages probably isn't the best way to keep them on your side. He knows that. And she knows that. This used to be their world, once. And then the rip happened and the worlds started mixing and the evils got a hold. They were stronger than the humans, even back then, and even though the humans had had so much weaponry and power, they hadn't won, and this would had become the minions world. And then the knights had come and taken it back, and then…

Well, then of course the Knights had found _him_. "Taken him back", and he'd had his program doctored. They silenced his evil for him. Muffled it so he could actually think again. Good and evil supposedly compressed into indifference. It hadn't quite worked out that way. Though it doesn't matter now, because at least now his good side is winning anyway. Or so they assumed.

'There isn't going to be a next time.'

'You're right,' she said. 'Because next time I'll run faster.'

'They'll shoot you,' he points out bluntly. She's walking deliberately slowly back the way they came so he has to keep breaking sharply to avoid running into her. She's not as wild as she was before. Inside of him, a quiet voice is muttering about pathetic mortal brats, but it's not the scream it used to be, so he ignores that too. Besides, he's got too much else to think about.

'I don't care.'

* * *

**The idea isupposed to draw on the possibility that random represents the volatile human element within each of us – the ability to be good or evil. He's also supposed to suggest that when you get down to it, our rational side might prove more powerful than our rages.**


	15. Handprint on the Program

**A very short thing. Un-betaed (she's at her grandparents – Happy Xmas, Sarah.) Standard disclaimers apply. They're not mine and they're never gonna be, though I figure the rights of copyright could clear any day now and then it's free game. **

**Title comes from a line in the song from the musical Wicked. (Elphaba: _"Let me say before we part so much of me is made of what I learned from you. You'll be with me like a handprint on my heart.")_ The quotes at the beginning and end of this fic are from the same song in the same musical. **

* * *

Handprint on Your Program.

"_I've heard it said that people come into our lives for a reason. Bringing something we must learn. And we are led to those who help us most to grow if we let them, and we help them in return…"_

_- Glinda the Good, the musical "Wicked". _

Human's had this saying (they had a lot of those. Sparx didn't care about most of them, but this one was different, because it was the one Chuck had always said he believed. Hey, if it came from _that_ kid, there _must've_ been a point to it. Probably not a very good one, but a point all the same.)

Sparx couldn't remember the exact words (except for that they were usually interspaced with a lot of "dudes!" and "sweet or what?"'s from the human in question), but it was something about how every person you ever meet comes into your life for a very specific reason. Because they had to teach you something.

And that meant _Everyone_. Even people you only saw for a few seconds and then never got a look at ever again. The zombie that tried to kiss you (and drag you into the afterlife with him, having convinced himself you were his long lost bride –yeuch!) on your first day as a Cadet. The woman who tried to sell you some phoney _Lightning Juice_ substitute in the alleys of Magery City. The man who taught you how to swipe-kick your opponents and get out of headlocks without losing half your hair. The female knight who first told you the meaning of "Do Right and Fear Not". The freak who ensnared your best friend like a spider in her web. The mortal who grinned when he saw you for the first time and pulled you out of Oblivion through a computer screen (she never did work out how he got that weird portal to work). It didn't matter who, where or _what_ they were, if you've met them, they're going to affect your life. sometimes in bigger ways than you expect.

Humans believed some crazy things.

Kat, for example. She only met Katherine Adams a couple of times (well, a couple of dozen, really. It was getting hard to remember, exactly) but… she made an impact. _"Look why don't you try it like this… That one there would be good but I don't think it's as long as that girl in the pictures is. And does this bobble even come out or is it glued it, or something?"_ Sparx hadn't actually though it was possible that hair belonged somewhere other than pulled back in a short ponytail. Kat meanwhile, could find a seemingly endless list of alternatives. Sparx's hair had been that way –short, back in a ponytail that was hardly long enough to be a tail at all– for… Zoar, at least twenty cycles… it was still that way today, though. So maybe the only think Kat had taught Sparx was that she didn't actually _want_ to waste time messing around with things that didn't matter when the world needed saving and butt needed kicking. But then, Kat had also taught Sparx you could have fun doing things you'd never thought necessary or interesting and actually find it cool.

Mark… taught her that mortals could be brave. She'd _never_ have figured that in a million cycles. Mortals were _never_ brave like Mark was: that was why she'd been one of the people assigned to protect and guard them. People not as strong as you needed to be looked after, after all, right? And if she had fun doing that protecting – all the better for her. He also taught her that it being brave and not being scared were two totally different things. The trick was to be scared half to wipe out, and go on anyway.

'_Woah! Sparx! I've like, played you before.'_

…He also taught her that first impressions weren't necessarily the only ones you can judge people on, and that everyone screws up more than they think they do. Even Ace. If only Sgt Helix in her Sixth Dimensional History class had felt the same way about that one.

Ace taught her that a lot of things, but especially that he wasn't perfect either. Not even close to it. Best Zoar thing he ever taught her.

Random taught her that people change and there's nothing you can do about it. they can change back, too, but that's all up to them, not anyone else. Still… stabbing at em and calling them names doesn't exactly help.

That guy at the carnival… Duff was his name. He taught her…

…She didn't remember what he taught her, but it probably wasn't that important anyway.

Chuck taught her… well, probably a lot of useless things. He told her stuff about the world, but a lot of it she still couldn't understand now, so maybe that wasn't what he taught her. He showed her how good jellybeans tasted when you dipped them in that fizzy ice cream soda stuff (and how sick you felt afterwards, even if you weren't mortal).

In fact now that she thought about it, most of the people who had ever taught Sparx anything really important had been mortals. A lot of them from Chuck, even though he said himself he didn't know how a lot of things worked if they didn't have buttons and circuit boards and installable hardware.

Which was kind of weird, because where she came from (and where she was now living out the last of her cycles). If they really did turn out to be her last, that was. Maybe they wouldn't. Maybe Chuck would work something else out and finally be able to get this universe fixed. Maybe he wouldn't.

* * *

'_Um… Chuckdude. I gotta favour to ask…' He looked up at her. He used to be… bigger someone, and darker. Now his hair was pretty much all this greyish-white colour and his face was all different to how it used to be. She knew that was just what happened to mortals and she should get used to it but… it was hard. Especially when the other mortals she knew had started just disappearing. _

'_Wish is my command, Sparxdude. Name it.'_

_Sparx nudged the old computer slightly with her hip. 'Um… send me back there._

_It looked like the one thing he'd rather she didn't say. 'Uh… excuse me?' _

'_You heard me, Chuckdude. Send me back to the sixth dimension. I know you can do it.' she watched him expectantly for s long time, and thought about how much he'd changed. _

'_But… you know it's in a mess.' _

'_I know, but…' _

'_You could die there, you get that, right? It's all… that world's in more pieces than my joints right now. I mean it. I don't know if I can fix it.' _

'_Sparx… why?' he really looked like he wanted to know, so Sparx told him. _

'_Because… cause I've still got something to fight for there, Chuck. Even now. Look I'm the same as I ever was but… everything else isn't, and it's not that I want to leave you alone but I…' she sighed. 'I want to go home, Chuck.' Home. Finally. At last. _

She got her wish. She was there.

Home. She could feel it. The old house at the end of Stalk Village where she sort-of-but-sort-of-didn't grow up (they were never at home anyway) and the roads she used to run up and down as a kid. All worn out and weird looking now. Everything was grey and kind of flat, and the other end of the street had vanished inside this weird grey foggy stuff and she didn't even recognize half the bad guys and freaks that decided to pick a fight with her (or try to talk to her when most of them only seemed to know one or two sentences at best) and _that_ was really bizarre. But it was still home.

She remembered meeting Ace here and learning her first lesson from him. She'd _really_ showed him, she grinned now, because he hadn't thought she could do it. hadn't thought in a gazillion years that this little kid could shoot that attacking freak with a lightning bolt from fifty feet away.

He'd been so cocky then, so confident back then… Kinda like Sparx when she was his age. Another thing for her to grin at.

'_Knights need to be really, really good shots. Even better than that, Sparx.'_

'_Even better than you?'_

'_Well, I come from a big family of knights; they taught me all the stuff I need to know. Sp I'm bound to be a knight one day, you'll see. _

_Giggles. 'But if you can't hit the target they'll chuck you out, if the freaks don't eat'cha!_

'_Take that back mortal girl!'_

'_Shut _up_, Acey. You know I'm not a mortal. Neither of us are humans and we never ever will be, right?'_

'_Right. Um… right. I knew that, of course. But it's much, much more complicated than that, Sparx. You're too little to understand it properly. And you'll have to if you're gonna be a knight one day.' _

The fog was coming close, today. Looming in over the building –Sparx could hardly call it a _house_ but… people _had_ lived in it once. She doesn't remember who (or what). Their memory was a faint glimmer in the back of a file and she wasn't sure if it was ever more of that. It's something Chuck always warned her about.

Maybe she'd send him an email today. (For the last time? Perhaps…)

So… there was something else that humans had taught her. That nothing, no matter how cool, ever lasts forever.

And that home was pretty much wherever you made it, and wherever you can access your memory banks. Sparx knew when she was beaten.

But then again, she never had been, really.

She thought about that for a long, long while, before the next wave of grey fog came and washed over everything forever. She didn't know what happened after that.

_Game Over.

* * *

_

'…_Well I don't know if I believe that's true, but I know I'm who I am today because I knew you.' _

_ -Glinda the Good, the musical "Wicked". _


	16. Confusing What's Real

**Written for the challenge prompt: Oscar Wilde: "Music makes one feel so romantic - at least it always gets on one's nerves - which is the same thing nowadays." Standard Disclaimers apply. Good luck wishes for anyone who can guess the song. **

* * *

Confusing What's Real. 

Ace makes a mental note to warn Mark, the next time he even thinks about leaving his Stereo in possession of Sparx.

It's really not a very good idea.

'Sparx, what on earth are you listening to?'

'Sparx looked away from where she was tapping her fingers against the table, shrugging. 'I dunno, just started playing when I messed about with it.'

'I see,' Ace lied. 'and why is this guy going on about things crawling under his upper skin layer and wounds that refuse to

'I dunno, maybe he needs a transformer?' Sparx gave the stereo a tap, the noise seemed to decrease, a little. 'This doesn't sound like Mark's usual kinda music… You know, Chuck said that music is meant to be romantic, or something,' Sparx frowned. 'Or at least… sentimental? I think that was the word. This doesn't feel that romantic, to me.'

'It sounds more like somebody has annoyed a nest of Fizzcats...'

'Yeah, or Random on a bad day… you remember when you'd walk into the physics lab and find him messing about with something and he'd tell you to go away and you wouldn't and…'

'And then something was almost guaranteed to explode, I think it was usually you who did that, Sparx.'

'You did it, something,' Sparx frowned as the guy on the stereo continued to sing. '…Hey, did he just say something about … standing besides his own reflection?'

They gave each other a look. 'And something about being insecure about that… you're right, it did sound that way.'

'Weird… how did this guy know about all that?' Sparx frowned at the stereo. 'It's just some mortal guy making a racket, but…'

'A lot of mortal music is about pretty much the same thing,' Ace suggested. 'Maybe it's not so odd that it would draw on one of us, at some point.'

'Oh…' Sparx looked back at the stereo.

Maybe it was a little sentimental, after all.

* * *

**Reviews and concrit are appreciated… in fact any activity at all is.**


	17. Five Things Heather Noticed About Sam

**Five individual short fics revolving around the theme "_Five things Heather noticed about Sam_." Standard disclaimers apply.**

* * *

Lady in Armour.

Word Count: 207, Set During: Season One, early.

Boys. Urgh.

They're such a waste of perfectly good time that Heather wonders why she bothers. But then again, she knows the importance of having the right kind of guy. Preferably one you happen to like. One who doesn't insist on being a Knight in Shining Armour and coming to your rescue every time you drop a pencil.

One that doesn't make up stupid excuses every time he wants to be rid of you for half an hour. One who never says "if", "why" or "but" and just accepts that the brain in your head is not constantly oriented around make up and shopping at the mall. One who respects your decisions and choices and doesn't back answer your every word. One who actually shows up when you call him, calls you when you're depressed and does not –repeat, NOT– leave you sitting for two hours on a park bench because he's having "girl troubles" or whatever.

Still…

She wonders, for the millionth time in the last five weeks, what on God's Green earth Samantha _sees_ in him, but she doesn't actually have to ask.

He does have a really nice smile. In a British kind of way.

Maybe that's the think that makes her kind of… jealous.

* * *

Carrot Sticks.

Word Count: 313, Set During: Before Season One.

'Carrot sticks.'

'…What?' Sam looked up from a daydream. Heather continued to point mercilessly at the dinner plate in front of them, refusing to let up.

'Carrot sticks. You never ate them.'

'That's what they are?' Brett snorted quietly. 'Man, I could've sworn they were feeding us boiled twigs again.'

He had a point, actually. About the only things the food actually had in common with their supposed namesake was that they were both orange.

'I'm not really hungry,' Sam said in a voice way more apologetic than it needed to be.

Heather knows exactly what that means. Because it's an old story, one they've repeated over and over for at least the last eight years. She knows her best friend. She knows carrot sticks are the only vegetable liked (and rather enjoyed) by Best friend. She knows her best friend's habits. She knows what happens when aforementioned best friend begins to slip into these habits and, once again, it seems it's up to good Ol' heather to swoop on in and save the day.

'Brett,' she says, sweetly. 'What did you do?'

Brett looks up blinking and… sweet boy that he is, he really doesn't have any idea, does he? That or he's a better liar than heather thought he was.

'Uh… excuse me?'

'You _know_ what.' Heather said, coldly. 'Fix it. Now.'

'Um, Heather, you see, it's not—'

'You heard me Brett.'

'But—'

'**Fix.'**

'I—'

'**It.' **

'Heather _c'mon_—'

'**Now.**' Heather thumped her juice on the plate a little harder than she meant to. I am going to go sit over there while you two sort this thing out. When I come back, I expect to find the carrot sticks eaten.

Heather left the table without a word leaving Brett gawking and Sam blinking, but all the same, she caught Sam smiling softly, before she turned away.

* * *

Rewards for Good Behaviour.

Word Count: 523, Set During: Before Season One.

It's not about _him_.

Really, it's not. Not in the least bit. If she were writing his name down he wouldn't even be worth the extra underlining and bolding of the word that she sometimes uses for important things when she's writing in her diary, he's really not worth so much as half an ounce of heather's attention, particularly not when he's doing his utmost best to _avoid_ that attention (what was that kid's _problem_ anyway? Does he just revel in the fact that half the girls in school –and probably a couple boys if rumour's anything to go by– are totally head over heels for him, when they've never even spoken to him… and would probably change their minds pretty damn quickly, if they did?) and…

It feels a little bit too cruel, so she won't say it. Not about _her_. Not about Sam, best friends… are important, heather knows that much. Too important to screw about with.

Much too important…

Damn her.

It's just after all this damn time of trying to work out whether the hell either of them was going to get the guy, Sam's the one who wins. Sam's the one who always gets too much and gives too much back in return to make it logical.

And then she skips town by a couple of hundred miles, goes of to some fancy boarding school that heather would sell her front teeth to be able to afford to go to. The Thompson's have never been short on money, though, and Sam always gets the best of things because of it.

Samantha always gets the things she wants, and she doesn't even realise it.

And the worst thing is she's not even a spoilt brat about it. She's so… nice. And quiet. And polite and good natured and friendly to relatives and friends and brand new students who come in from over seas and turn out to be a little… different to most ordinary people. (TOO nice to brand new students coming in from overseas, if you ask Heather). She always got what she wanted. Maybe because she was nice but Heather doubted it. Nice people didn't get nearly as far as universal concepts would like to think they did. Hard workers were the ones who made it. Hard workers were the one who graduated with firsts and went on to do honours and cure cancer or rid the world of AIDS or whatever the hell else they did.

That was the way things worked, right? So why did Sam deserve this all more than Heather did? Why did she deserve to have the guy and then go off to boarding school without even mentioning it to him beforehand (not that she cares too much, still she would've called first just to ram the break up in the pain-in-the-ass's face)? Why did she get the prestigious boarding school scholarships when Heather had applied to _exactly_ the same place three months _before_ her?

Heather crunches up the letter Sam sent her from Westleaf and goes back to working on her Geography Assignment in suitably nastier spirits than she had been before the mail call.

* * *

Tomorrow.

Word Count: 820, Set During: Post Season Three.

It had almost been as if she was actually enjoying herself.

'Getting a little into it there, huh Sam?'

Sam leaned back in her chair, smiling ever so slightly. 'You're the one who was signing autographs, Lightning Girl .'

'Urgh. Use that name again and _suffer_ horribly, Thompson,' Heather smiled and gave her friend's shoulder a light shove, making herself comfortable in the chair, huddled up against Sam's side. They saved the world. Why not enjoy it?

'It was… nice though, wasn't it.'

'You should hear it. They're calling us Tomorrow Children'

'…Tomorrow children. Jeeze. Watch bad nineties television much?

'I happened to like that show, dude,'

'Hmpf. You would Chuck.'

Yeah but I guess it makes sense,' Chuck was working on a computer. He didn't actually press any keys or click anything – Telekinesis did all the work without him so much as having to turn the machine on. 'We're alive, aren't we? Whole new generation, shooting for the stars or… or something. Because of the special powers we were given.'

'Hm. If you say so, Chuck,' Sam smiled sleepily.

There was her, there was Chuck. There had been Mark and Eric and Chelsea and Ashley. And then there was Sam. The only one who hadn't developed psychometric abilities gifted to them from the all-too-fictional sixth dimension.

The only girl amongst them who had survived it all, anyway.

Ace had said something about Sam, not long before he vanished into the DataStream. Something about things not working out the way they were supposed to. About her not turning out to be what they had all imagined.

'_Why? Because she didn't work out how to do any of the freaky stuff you're teaching us to do? I don't see what's so bad about being _normal_. Lightning._

'_The powers are natural. You're just supposed to let them come and they'll appear whenever you need them.'_

'_You expect me to believe _this_ is natural?' Heather has said as much while displaying a hand, gravitational energy sort of… zipping back and fourth between her fingers, turning the air around her into a kind of super powered magnet, making the nearby steel scaffolding tremble and the doors of wrecked cars rattle all around her._

'_Completely. It was only a matter of time before this happened to you world, only… when I heard about the game,' he shook his head then smiled. 'I was wrong, though. Twice wrong. This is as real as we want –or don't want, as the case may be– things to be, Heather. And so are all your powers. Mark… I used to wonder why he didn't fight with his own; until I worked out he was mortal. Mortals…' he hesitate, looking for the right words 'Mortals never used to have the kind of… potential that you kids do now. You're something new, you see Heather. I'm not sure what, exactly. But you are. Something… special.'_

'_Yeah. Special. Right. Just get your goddamn golden boy over here and get him to remove the freaking nuts and bolts that're being magnetized my back, will you? I am not a fucking aluminium recycling system.'_

'_Well, technically according to your power stats, Heather, um…that's exactly what you are. Sort of.' _

'_Ace!'_

'_Alright, alright! I'm getting him.' _

Sam had sat there and giggled at her all the time Mark was trying to psycho-shock the metal away from Heather's clothing. He made a bad joke about Heather having a Magnetic Personality. Heater had hit him with a light gravity burst.

All the powers of the lightning and more. Theirs. _Hers_, Heather thought, proudly to herself. Hers to use as she wished.

But not Samantha's.

'Did they say when they were coming back?' Sam asked, surprising Heather out of her half dozing state.

'Some time tomorrow, I think. They're bringing a news crew, can you believe that? I wonder if that lady who spoke to me years ago –you know, for the UFO thing – is still alive? Maybe it'll be her.'

'You're sure it's that news crew. I thought they were based in Conestoga before the War started.'

'Oh… Yeah. 'Forgot. Anyway they're bringing um…' he coughed, switching off the computer with his head. 'They're bringing government officials to talk about… the mess.'

Heather nodded. She'd expected as much, but Sam shrunk a little deeper into her, head resting against Heather's shoulder.

Heather ran the names over in her mind in a specific kind of order. Mark, Ace. Chuck, Random. Kat, Elspeth. Sparx and Heather herself. They all meant something very important, and yet she couldn't fit the ordinary, good natured, totally un-powered Samantha Thompson in anywhere amongst them. Because Samantha didn't belong there. Or here, in this newfound world of powerful children and endless destruction. She didn't belong and she didn't want to.

But then again, that could be said for just about everyone who didn't act like a magnetic recycling machine in this messed up, post-apocalyptic town.

* * *

Sleepover.

Word Count: 248, Set During: Several years before series One.

'It's there!!!'

'Where?'

'Right in front of us! Can't you see it?' Sam pointed at a spot on the wall between the glowing pink nightlight and the My Little Pony curtains.

'I don't see!' Heather complained.

'He's sort of… dead. But he's moving, and he's right there . All bones in front of us,' Sam shuddered. 'He's smiling and looking at me and calling me "Lady".'

'Like my grandma's dog?' heather giggled.

'No! Not the dog kind of lady! The real kind of lady.' Sam frowned intently at the doorway looking more irritated that frightened. 'He's telling me I have to wait for a long, long time. Things will be different then.' She shuddered. 'I don't like it Heather.'

Heather gave her new best friend a good long stare. Sammy had never acted this funny before. Heather waited for Sammy to start grinning and laughing at her own joke, but it never happened.

'There there, you know mommy said ghosts aren't real, Sammy.'

'This one is,' Samantha whispered.

Heather reached out to grab more from the popcorn bowl. 'You're too big to believe what Troy tells you. Nearly eight. He's just a stupid boy , remember?'

Sam kept gazing silently at the door. When Heather offered her more popcorn, her friend shook her head and kept on staring. The sleepover talk was over.

Heather listened from inside her sleeping bag as a door somewhere in the building slipped silently to a close. Neither of them spoke of the incident again.

* * *

Reviews and concrit are appreciated. 


	18. The Nature of Heroism

I thought I was never gonna get rid of this… Heavily inspired by an event in a Young Justice comic. This was meant to be a drabble, but it wouldn't shut up. I had to keep explaining things and… well. This happened. Uttterly pointless. One shot. Not my best. Standard disclaimers apply.

* * *

The Nature of Heroism. (Note #1: Be Suspicious About _Everything_.)

'Chuck we've been through this,' Mark pointed out. And he was right. They _had_ been through it. About a dozen times already, but Chuck was still a little iffy on the logic of the situation and he knew he could be really adamant on the superheroes thing. 'I think when these guys entered the real world, things kind of stopped working according to the rulebook. That's why I stopped relying on it months ago.'

'Why?' Chuck shrugged, 'I say it's worked so far —I mean it's obvious,' he said, quickly in answer to the expression on Mark's face. 'I mean, the good guys arrive after the bad guy, the kid gets inducted into some heroic organization, bingo – you've got a sidekick. You fight the bad guys, they lose, world gets saved. Just like in every videogame I've ever played in my life. Things haven't changed that much except that… well, now you've just gotta factor human life into the equation, right?'

'…Right. Sounds like someone's been listening in Mrs Shiel's Philosophical Studies,' Mark sounded a little amused.

'Nah, it was on The Knight Fall Journals on The Sci-Fi Channel last night…' Chuck stared up into the branches of the tree house, thoughtlessly. 'Anyway, you can't talk to me about being melodramatic, man. You're the one with the binoculars, spying on the superhero, it's like you always expect something to go wrong the second you turn your back.'

'Well, usually it does. And I'm not spying, Chuck. I'm just… keeping an eye on things, like I said I would.'

'…Dude, it's just Lady Illusion, what's she gonna _do_?' Chuck said. And while less than a year ago, saying the words "_Lady Illusion_" and "_what's she gonna do_" in the same sentence would be kind of the same as someone asking what trouble Wayne Fisgus could possibly get up to with a paint gun and a swimming pool, now, however, Chuck felt a little more confident about Lady Illusion's good (or at the very least, _not bad_) intentions, that was. Not Wayne. Still couldn't take any chances Wayne.

To be honest, Mark was starting to worry him. Chuck swore he'd caught the guy checking his mobile for messages _fifteen times_ in the last thirty minutes, and there was a thin line between legitimate suspicion and totally rampant paranoia (so said the great Patrick Steward and woe betide Chuck for arguing with the analysis of a sci-fi acting genius, right?)

When Ace asked Mark and Chuck to "keep an eye on things around here", Chuck was fairly sure that this was what the Lightning Knight had had in mind. Besides, spying on someone like Lady Illusion went totally against all common sense and self preservation.

The fact that Mark had promised to put the binoculars _down_ again if anything… well, anything weird happened didn't actually make him feel any better and that thought was so totally wrong he wasn't even going to entertain it for a second, lest he suffer some kind of permanent psychological damage.

'I don't _know_. And that's exactly _why_ I'm keeping an eye on things,' Mark muttered.

'You don't trust her, huh?' Chuck realised that that thought… confused him, more than anything else. 'Why not? I mean she _died_ for him. Sorta.'

'I didn't say I don't _trust_ her.'

'But you don't, right?' Chuck reinforced. Mark hesitated, just long enough for Chuck to be sure he was right.

'…Not _enough_,' Mark admitted, lowering the binoculars for a moment. 'It's not like she would've gained any survival points sticking around with Kilobyte. And we still don't know what he did to her in the Sixth Dimension. We know _something_ happened, you read it on their program files. He could have all sorts of… mind control stuff at work.' Chuck shrugged a bit, not sure how to deal. 'And then she just appeared back here, out of nowhere? Didn't even go say "hi"?'

'Well, you don't seem this worked up when the other bad guys do it,' Chuck searched around, aimlessly for a stray walkman headphone.

'Lady Illusion's not _like_ the other villains. She vanished, Chuck,' Mark continued, seriously, back to looking through the binoculars. 'For months on end. I was _there_ when it happened. And then out of the blue she just… calls Ace for a meeting and warns everyone else to stay well away. Doesn't that sound a tad suspicious to you?' Mark paused for a moment, waiting for a retort Chuck couldn't think of to give. 'Something's not right'

'…Man, have I told you that you're getting more and more paranoid with every villainous encounter?'

'Three times in the last week, Chuck.'

'You're keeping count, now? Second sign, dude…'

Chuck can see Mark scowling around his binoculars. Or maybe just frowning really hard. 'Chuck, _please_, I'm trying to read what Ace is saying here.'

Chuck frowned, lifting his head from the tree house floor where he'd been watching an ant going about its way with an oversized crumb from his Rocky Road bar. 'You can _lip read_?'

'Yeah… well, a bit. Only really clear words,' Mark shrugged. 'I had a deaf uncle. He showed me how. And can we stick to the point, please?'

He can tell it's a scowl now, and not just a frown because of the way Mark's eyebrows go _up_ like that. He figured it was a funny British thing until he realised that guy at the carnival did it all the time too.

Chuck noticed weird stuff like that. Maybe observation skills could be part of his cool superhero mystique.

'Sure, I'll stick to the point, man. The point is that you're turning into one of those suspicious old detectives you see in mystery novels. You know the one who thinks everyone's out to get him?'

And everyone usually is,' Mark quirked a smile. 'Right?'

'Well… yeah but… dude, that's just _fiction_ and this is real life so…' Mark gave him a brief look and gestured at the amulet piece still hanging around his neck. '…Uh. Okay, bad example. Real life _plus_ videogame characters _equals_ bad news every spare minute of the day. I'll keep that in mind.'

Mark nodded; apparently ignoring the sarcasm and looking back through the binoculars. He stayed that way for a few long seconds.

'You'd think the whole super powers thing would've caught on, too,' Chuck said.

Mark lowered the lenses again. 'Sorry?'

'You know, superpowers. You're his sidekick, right? And we know that stuff from the game _works_ on us, because we've seen it happen. How come you didn't get superpowers?'

Mark blinked a bit at that. 'Does it matter? I don't _want_ superpowers.'

Yeah, Chuck believed that about as much he believed Lord Fear supported the Women's Union. 'Oh _c'mon_, man, who _wouldn't_ want superpowers?'

'I dunno, how about someone whose entire family has been _attacked_ with them at one point or another?'

'…Fair enough, but they're not all blasting and blowing stuff up. I mean with super hearing or something you could listen in on whatever your parents were saying about you from your bedroom! Ace's hearing is at least that good, right? I know, I checked. I mean, his stats are a bit iffy on that area, but I'm pretty sure the guy is capable of mastering super hearing when he gets to a certain level of the game.'

'And which level's that?' Mark asked, sounding vaguely interested.

'Not sure. You threw away the guidebook, remember?'

'I didn't actually throw it away; it's still there in my room… somewhere.' Mark lowered the binoculars again. Well, Chuck thought, at least he was drawing Mark away from his usual paranoia. Or paranoia that was becoming usual lately, anyways. Step one of the plan was paying off.

'Meh. Anyway, I think that Ace can get it, at some point. It's one of those auto-upgrade things, but nobody's ever bothered with it because it only works for people who bought speaker upgrades to go with the game. Total rip off. But anyway, superpowers? Big thing. Can't be a superhero without the super, right?'

'Coming from a guy who's already had them once before, I guess there's merit in that thought, right?' Mark said.

…And that surprised him. 'Whuh?'

Mark paused for a second, biting his lip, and Chuck couldn't tell whether he'd just caught sight of something interesting through the binoculars or was debating whether or not to say something. 'Remember the soccer match? Back in middle school?'

'Yeah?' Chuck sat up straight, thinking about it. _Then_ thinking about it some more and realising the point. 'Yeah… Hey! Sweet, man! I should've figured! That _did_ have something to do with Ace, didn't it?' Mark just smiled. 'I _knew it_. Man, why couldn't it have stuck around? Wayne would probably never have bothered us again. At least not for the rest of middle school.'

'Oh, and would you have walked around with your foot in a plastic bag for weeks?' Mark grinned.

'...Har-de-har. Funny.'

Step two –Mark had also forgotten his usual state of paranoia _just_ enough for him to be able to relearn how to joke. Well, how to poke fun at Chuck, anyway. Close enough. At least Chuck now had an answer to yet another of the totally inexplicable things that'd happened to him in his life since the day he'd met Mark Hollander. He kind of wished he could tell Jessica the truth about that. She was starting to get tired of the old Man of the Match story anyway, not that she'd ever say it. Jess was cool like that. Real patient, like.'

'What is it?' Mark interrupted his chain of thought. He must've seen Chuck gazing off into nothing again.

'Nothing, it's just…'

'Just what?'

'Well… You think he could do it again?'

Mark half dropped the binoculars. 'Chuck!'

'Seriously, it was cool! Having super strength really rocked, I totally showed Wayne where to stick himself, uh… no… pun intended.'

And now Mark had remembered how to laugh. Well, snigger, anyway. That was cool. Chuck could work with sniggering.

'I mean come on, don't say you haven't at least _thought_ about it? If you could get Ace to do it, then it'd be cool for us to have something else to fight with besides bits of metal and… and Super… Gloves of Doom… thingies. But then he'd probably be all unsure about it and wouldn't do it anyway…' he thought for a second. 'Sparx, though… _she'd_ be up for it, right away.'

'…Chuck I am not going to let Sparx _shoot_ me.'

'Jeeze, Mark, you sound like you don't trust _her_ either.'

'Yes I _do_, I just don't trust her to be able to _shoot me_ without causing any permanent damage, Chuck what is it with you and trust today?'

Chuck shrugged. 'I dunno, what is it with you and not _having_ any trust?'

Mark got the message.

'…Yeah, okay. So now we're even. Look, Chuck the only reason that blast didn't _kill_ you then, was because it was a deflected shot. It bounced off something else _before_ it got to you. What about the _other_ time you got shocked?'

'That? Well, I had bad hair for a week…' Chuck started, and then realised Mark was wearing his _quit-trying-to-make-light-of-something-serious_ face. Which was kind of similar to the _close-your-mouth-now-before-we-all-get-killed_, and the _we're-all-going-to-die-but-everyone-try-to-stay-calm _faces, only less urgent and more… irritated? Yeah. Irritated was a good word for the look on Mark's face right now.

'Heh. Okay, man, okay. I get the picture, no asking Sparx to electrocute me.' Mark continued with his suspicious stare for a minute. '…Or you,' Chuck corrected himself. 'We cool? Fine, now that that's settled now, will you just _put down_ the binoculars, let ol' mister romantic over there conclude the heartfelt reunion in peace and come and get some pizza already? I promised Jessie I'd meet her at—'

'Wait,' Chuck heard Mark catch his breath, cutting off his sentence.

'What, the Lady's finally shown up?' Chuck asked. Mark nodded slightly, as if afraid too much movement might alert the Lightning Knight to his snooping, even though said Lightning Knight was currently just under a mile away and only visible to them through assisted means. Mark had gone back to gripping the binoculars and his paranoid face had popped up again. Wonderful. All Chuck's hard work undone.

'Uh… Mark, look, _nothing's_ going to happen, okay? I still say she cares about Ace too much to go blasting him. Look, what're you worried about?'

'Chuck, shush!'

'Fine,' Chuck sighed irritably settling back against the tree and waiting a few more minutes. 'So now what's she doing? Knocking him to oblivion?'

'Um. No,' Mark said. Chuck could've sworn Mark looked embarrassed there. He sat up again.

'What? What _is_ she doing? Should erm… should you be putting down those binoculars, now?'

Mark sighed irritably. 'Nothing like _that_, Chuck, get your mind out of the gutter already.'

'I say again, _you're_ the one with the binoculars. And you can't exactly blame a teenagers mind for the stuff it finds on the internet.'

'…Chuck.'

'What? Seriously! I am totally not at fault for my own thought processes; the subconscious mind is a big, big, _creepy_ place, Mark. And you realise that you're quoting your _girlfriend_ there with that "mind and gutters" thing, right?'

'And you realise _you're_ quoting our biology teacher?'

'Hey, I'm being serious now, dude. Lady Illusion hasn't _done_ anything… suspicious, had she? And I mean _suspicious_ as in blasted him when he wasn't looking, not—' he gulped. 'Oh, hell, I'm gonna shut up. Just tell me what she said.'

'I… nothing,' Mark finished. 'Well, nothing… suspicious. Anyway. They were just… they were talking that's all, but she had her back to me. I couldn't tell.'

Chuck shuffled, suddenly aware of the total moral ambiguity of this whole thing. They were totally spying on a superhero, no matter what they might try to call it.

'He's looking in our direction; she flew towards us for a bit… he's saying something really slowly.' Chuck waited pointedly for Mark to elaborate, when he didn't, he pressed the issue. Okay, so maybe he was a little curious himself.

'Yeah, and what?'

Mark didn't answer. In fact, he had quite literally frozen in place. He looked as if she'd literally stopped breathing.

'…Mark? Um… are they too far away? You can't read what he's saying way over there, right?'

'No, I read it,' Mark mumbled, looking a little freaked. Finally he put down the binoculars. 'He, uh… he said: "_Hi Mark, I think it's safe, so… so you can put down the visual enhancement device now_."'

Chuck blinked once. Then again.

'…Dude, that's just _creepy_.'

'…Exactly what I was thinking.'

* * *


	19. Endings and Beginnings

**W****hen I was younger, I made a mistake. It's too late to fix it now, but maybe I didn't fail entirely, not so long as I can still write this. ****This is sort of about that. You don't need to understand. **

**Standard disclaimers apply

* * *

**

Beginnings and Endings.

_'And soccer! Mark, you've completely got to sign up for that as soon as you get settled in. That's what they call football in England, so you'd better make sure you say _soccer_, otherwise you'll probably get chucked in with a bunch of hulking gladiators who're all seven times your height and weight and—' _

'Yeah, Pete, I _know_. Dad's already given me the lowdown on proper American culture. Six times. In one _night_.'

_'__Trust me, you can never be over-reminded about how important it is not to get those two mixed up.' _

'Yeah, right... hey, do you think I should pack the videogames in the same suitcase as the computer software in the removal van or will it get broken?'

_'What the heck are you talking about _now_? Glad you've got your priorities sorted, mate.'_

'Well, I only just bought this Ace Lightning game; don't want it to get smashed up, right?'

_'Oh, yeah, sure. Fine goodbye_ this _is. I call him up for what might well be the last time ever before his parents cart him off around the globe to a country where they call crisps "chips" and chips _"French Fries"_ even though they're nowhere bloody near France, and all he can do is talk at me down the phone line about videogames, not really even paying attention to me while wandering around his soon-to-be-not-his bedroom.'_

'Heh. Relax, Pete, I'm just carrying on with you, I'm listening, really.'

_'I guessed. This is what you call distracting yourself from the inevitable culture shock at your closest friend and comrade's expense, you know.'_

'...You stole that line from Holly, didn't you?'

_'__Heh.__ Yep. Girl might not know her verbs, but she definitely knows how to phrase an insult.' _

'Funny. And I'm not in my bedroom, I'm in the dining room.'

_'__Whatever.' _

'...Come on, Pete. It's not goodbye _yet_. I mean, you'll be at the airport tomorrow, right?'

_'__Yeah I know. At _five thirty am_! And people say I'm not a good friend, eh?'_

'Who says you're not a good friend?'

_'Daniel Shepherd, after I didn't let him copy my __maths__ homework, that's who. __Some people.__ Like I was getting anything right anyway!' _

'...Of course you weren't. We all know you suck at maths.'

_'...All these years, mate, and you still don't know how to sugarcoat a response?' _

'Guess not. Just haven't mastered it, I guess.'

_'So, uh...'_

'...So.'

_'You're biting your lip aren't you?'_

'...What?'

_'Don't have me on, you are, I can hear __it__.' _

'How can you _hear_ lip biting?!'

'_Well you know what they say... when you lose one, your other senses get stronger to compensate.' _

'Pete you haven't _lost_ any senses.'

_'Yeah, I have. I'm losing my patented since-five-years-old-best-friend sense. Somehow I doubt I'll still be able to tell what mood you're in from your lip biting when you're halfway round the globe, hm?' _

'...I...I'll email, right? You can even come for holidays, I bet mum would let you stay over. And hey, we both have mobiles.'

_'Yeah, and a five quid a week credit limit. Oh, no, wait, for you __it's__ five _dollars_ now, isn't it?' _

'...More like ten, really.'

_'Oh, _brilliant_, my life's so much richer for knowing that.'_

'...'

_'...You're moving, Mark.'_

'I know that.'

_'Halfway across the world._ Forever_.'_

'...I know that, too.'

_'Holly Cotton's going to be heartbroken.'_

'Oh, very funny.'

_'No, seriously, she is! Who's she gonna copy her English homework off now?'_

'...She never copied my English homework in the first place, Pete. We always got the same answers wrong. She copied them off Maria Park.'

_'Yeah, who copied them off me.'_

'And therefore always got it _wrong._'

_'Yeah, but only because she sat next to Chris Askew who sat next to Derek Blackmore who sat in front of you...'_

'Y-eah. Pete, you'd better stick to football, logic's not your thing.'

_'_Now _who's the joker? ...Hey, Mark?'_

'Yeah?'

_'__Make me a promise, would you, mate?'_

'...Oh boy, I hope this isn't gonna be like that one you made me make when we were six. The one about the incident with the park slide? That was gross, Pete.'

_'__Oh, come on, mate, we're _teenagers_, we've moved totally beyond the realms of the spit-shake. Anyway, promise me, yeah?'_

'...Alright.'

_'__Seriously, promise. __Right here and now.__ While picturing putting your hand on a bible!' _

'Pete, I promise already.'

_'Right. You're promising me that no matter how long you stay there, or whether or not you end up playing international football... I mean soccer for the Conestoga Wild Boar's or something, you're not gonna forget little ol' Pete Witherton way back in the United Kingdom who spent the first twelve years of his life with. The boy who you mastered_ Tekken Tag Team _with, who endured eight years of school museum visits with you, who first taught you how to kick a ball straight, and _didn't_ grass when you kicked the first ball into Mr Chistler's back garden pond.'_

'Oh, don't be daft, of course I won't... except for the bit about the pond, that was your fault.'

_'So wasn't. Anyway, promise?'_

'Pete, I don't need to promise that, because I already know it's true. You'll always be my best mate.' _'You__ serious?'_

'Of course I'm serious! Don't worry, mate. Some things won't change.'

_'Yeah, they will. But thanks for saying it anyway. __Yank.' _

'Oh, Ha ha. So do I pack Ace Lightning in with the computer hardware, or...?'

_'__Nah, stick it in with the cloths. Dad says that __aeroplane__ long distance haulage people always toss the packages about like they're footballs.' _

**End. Kind of.

* * *

**


	20. Remembering

A brief Random ficlet with no real point, except it's correlation with the fanfic100 prompt.

* * *

_'Random, listen... you saved me once.' _  
-Ace Lightning, Season One, Episode Nine, "Once Upon a hero".

Remembering. 

He remembers Ace Lightning.

He _does_ remember, though the memories are not always pleasant ones. Sometimes they are all death and destruction. Sometimes he stands by Random's side, smiling and offering a hand of alliance (_'I need no alliance_'). Sometimes he rises on the end of a claw and is thrown hard into the surrounding scrap metal of the junkyard. And yet, he always forgives. (_'I need no forgiveness._')

Ace is like that.

He remembers a time before metal and steel first began to take over his body, laughing in the academy corridors about something crazy Sparx did during her mechanics session. About losing his temper with a fellow cadet (_"weakling, coward, dared to raise a hand to him, dared to insult him, not worthy of the name "knight"_)and Ace making sure he did no harm. About the time he broke his artificial hand.

He remembers telling Ace the truth about his origins –the bonding of natural and synthetic, evil and good. His parents, enemies and allies in one. He remembers Ace accepting that as easily as he later accepted the steady degradation of Random's physical structure and his reconstruction out of metal. As easily as he accepted the steady loss of Random's sanity and physical sensation.

He remembers the debate they had one night about the natures of good and evil. He remembers Ace realising than the natural world of magic is not their enemy – but those who use it wrongly. That nature itself is as much a victim as mortals. Where dark magic is concerned.

He remembers Ace disappearing into the portal out of the Sixth Dimension, to a world that none of them truly understood. He remembers the cold burning solitude and hatred. He remembers the resolve of a side of him that was his own, and yet was not. He remembers death and cold and evil.

He remembers Ace Lightning, the highest of the Lightning Knights. He has fought against evil to reach this place. He has been an ally, an enemy sometimes, but a friend always. He is the one who will save their world. Ace is the one who shall do what is right, and he shall always fear not.

_'Weakling. You should destroy him now.'_

No. I don't want to.'

'Yes I do.

But this is not their world any longer.

And it's been a long time since Random knew what was right.

* * *


	21. Brimstone and Old Time

**I cannot honestly _believe_ I wrote a fic about this. I'm also not very good at dramatic prose so I hope this works. Done for my Ace Lightning fanfic100 challenge. Prompt #36: Smell. Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit appreciated, as always.

* * *

**  
Brimstone and Old Time.

She smells faintly of brimstone and old, worn time. Like the fires of the Oblivion Mines mingled with the odour of the Haunted House. Strange, yet not as unpleasant as it should be,

Smell is something quite distinctive for mortals, or so Ace has discovered during his time here. For Lightning Knights it is almost optional, but for mortals, it exists as one of their senses, as clear and evident to humans as the visual power gauge within Ace's eyes seems to him. He also knows that, in many cases, it is not one of their favourites.

For example: at times, Ace has seen Chuck gag in the presence of that old zombie from the Mini Golf course, or Mark choking on the backlash from a misfired Wrist Cannon setting fire to something close by. Times when even Sparx, who is still getting used to the quirks and oddities of this very mortal world, has looked as if she's just about ready to gag on the stench of Pigface.

But there are other things. Like when Mark follows his girlfriend with his eyes and mentions something about perfume. Kat always smiles when he says things like that, and her smile is nothing like Lady Illusion's.

Until he came to the mortal world, Ace had been mostly unaware of such things. Or perhaps it was simply that she had never been close enough for him to be aware of it. Mark said that when you were around a person for long enough, you began to stop noticing the small things about them, and only became aware of them again when they were absent. But she is close enough to touch him now, and smiling at him the way that reminds him of a Haunting Ghost, moments before it snares its prey.

The Haunting Ghosts have a smell all of their own, too – as Ace also discovered one day, when one emerged from the Kent Brothers' Dairy ice-cream truck and "almost turned Random into a borg'sicle" as Chuckdude had put it. And Random, too. Random smells of oil and faint rust and the old dorm rooms of the Academy. The mortals are... strange. Their smell is difficult to pinpoint, and seems to depend on a number of things. Sparx...

He can't work out what Sparx smells of, but he bets that whatever it is, it's probably a spice.

None of them seem like Lady Illusion does.

Ace finds, to his surprise, that he does not find this the least bit bothersomeThe brimstone is... peculiar, certainly, and the smell of old wood and dust makes him feel that she is older than she appears, but there is nothing remarkable about either of them. There is nothing remarkable about the way she can shift and reshape her form into anything –anything– that she wishes to be, and let, her smell remains constantly the same – always faint brimstone and dust. Always old and powerful, even while muted. The taste is similar also, when she kisses him.

It's a means by which he can still recognize her, regardless of what form she takes. And Ace honestly doesn't see what's so bad about it.

* * *


	22. Five Things Sam Noticed About Mark

**Very, very old; concrit is still appreciated, but will be taken with an ever so slight pinch of salt. **

**This was originally a challenge given by ****sarah_frost****: Five things Sam noticed about Mark, but didn't confront him about.**

* * *

1) **Word Count:193 Setting: Series two, pre-final episode**

Unquestioned.

Something happened over the holidays.

Not that she's completely up to date on what happens around here, these days. It feels… strange, no longer being so involved with Heather and Brent and him. Coming back to town and feeling like a visiting stranger.

And the odd thing is, it wasn't until she looked at it from another perspective, when she started to hang with Kat and hear her talking about the exact same things that had always concerned her so much back in the old days. Kat would chat on the phone line about missed dates and strange phone conversations. And then one day the name "Ace" popped up one too many times and Samantha…

Well. She wondered.

And then, one day, Kat just… stopped. Oh, the calls kept coming, but the complaining had ceased. For a while Samantha thought they must have broken up, too, until Kat called her to ask what a good idea would be for a one year anniversary present.

Samantha never asked her why, or what happened, and she never asked Mark either.

Really, she's just glad that somehow, the two of them must have worked it out.

* * *

2) **Word Count: 193… whoa. Weird. O_o Setting: Series one, post Kilobyte Bites Back.**

Phonecalls.

Who was that, she wants to ask, but she doesn't, because she knows the answers going to be a lie.

It's not a girl. She's sure of that, the voice doesn't sound right and she's pretty sure he doesn't… you know. Swing that way.

So it's not cheating.

But it's still lying. And she doesn't want to deal with that anymore, especially not today when she's finally resolved to tell him where she's going next year and it sure as heck isn't Conestoga hill's high school.

She's not going to ask. She's not.

'…Who was that?'

Damn it…

'Nobody.' Mark says, speaking with forced casualness. 'Just… a friend.'

A friend. Of course.

'Who's that? Brett? Chuck?' she knows it's neither. If it were he would have told her.

'No. Just… he's having some girl troubles.'

'Oh. It's that friend. Sure.' Samantha settles back in her chair and reaches back for the pizza, and then she waits twenty seconds, knowing he'll probably be muttering some excuse and leaving by then. He's kind of… predictable, really.

Samantha soon "forgets" what she'd been about to tell him. Mark's not the only one who can have secrets.

* * *

3) **Word Count: 158 Setting: mind series one.**

Don't ask.

'Jeeze, man, what happened to you?' Brett is blinking in surprise, Chuck is frowning, Heather is giving a customary roll of her eyes, though to be entirely honest even she looks a little bit disturbed. Mark is… not enjoying the extra attention.

'It's nothing, really.'

'Uh. No, dude. The bruise on my shin from hitting the desk is nothing. That is not nothing.'

''Ow, Chuck, don't.'

'Oops, sorry.'

So what happened, anyway, man?' Brett asks. 'You get beaten on by someone… wielding an anvil, or something?'

'Um, well something like that.' Mark tries to frown without much success.

'Damn it, Sam, what're you letting your boy get himself into?' Heather mutters, with more than a touch of irony.

Sam doesn't answer. She knows that it's really her who should be asking why Mark's face looks as if he had a fight with an oncoming vehicle and lost.

But she's kind of afraid of what the answer might be.

* * *

4) **Word Count: 174 Setting: post Knights Undercover, season one.**

No Idea.

'You showed up,' she said, eventually. It had surprised her, really. He'd been so against her taking that job, and he had such a penchant for not being on time for _anything_ that she'd kind of assumed he wouldn't…

'Isn't that the kind of thing I'm supposed to do?' he's smiling at her. 'Besides, I wanted to come.'

She wishes he wouldn't look at her like that. He's going to break her resolve.

'Well you were pretty sure you didn't want me working here before,' Sam says, and she manages to refrain from asking "why" for the millionth time. 'You should be happy about my not going back now, at least.'

Mark doesn't say anything, but the smile vanishes.

'I just don't want you to get hurt.' He shrugs.

Hurt by what? Sam thinks without asking. Freaky birds? But she doesn't say anything, just reaches out to grasp his fingers in hers. 'That's sweet. Thank you. But really, I can handle myself, Mark.'

They walk the rest of the way home in virtual silence.

* * *

5) **Word Count: 175 Setting: any point during series one **

Boldly Going…

Boys. Huh.

She can't help but wonder where on earth he keeps the carpet. If she drops something in here she knows she'll probably never see it again.

And then she drops her purse and it somehow manages to roll under the computer table. Great, Sam frowns to herself, trying to peer into the darkness and search it out. This is going to be an expedition. She can picture what Heather's face would be like if she caught a glimpse of this room. Mark's even worse than Brett was, and that was really saying something. Her fingers brush against DVD cases and…

Wait. Is that "Star Trek"?

She pulls the case out of the shadows and stares at the cover. No dust. Funny… she's pretty sure she saw this on TV once or twice… there'd been something on the episode about people from a three-d fictional world coming to life and taking over the spaceship.

She's still grinning silently to herself when Mark comes back up the stairs.

Her boyfriend watches Star Trek.

Good grief.


	23. Ace Lightning and the Joy of Winterfest

**This isn't so much a full fic, as it is a fragment of one. The idea of Joy here popped into my head around… well, around Xmas time obviously. It's a little late for the holiday season, but I figured it was a cute scene. I have enough stuff happening in my life as it is, and it seems a shame that nobody will see it if I don't post it as fragments. I may finish it at some later date because the boys _really_ need to be more spirited. **

**And frankly, this section needs more fics. So here you are. An extremely belated Happy Christmas to you all. **

**I'm pretty sure I didn't come up with the term Winterfest. That was either Nat the Rat, or Blue Inked Frost's idea.**

* * *

Ace Lightning and the Joy of Winterfest. 

Mark brushed tinsel out of the doorway and tried to ignore the _jingle jingle_ of what he still wasn't convinced was a real voice, even though for some reason, he could understand it was one quite clearly, ringing in his ears. 'You, this whole Winterfest thing is really... taking off, Chuck.'

'You're telling me,' Chuck muttered. 'I mean have you seen what they've apped onto Dirty Rat... Wait, you're actually _calling_ this Winterfest?'

'Um... Yeah? Well... they call Christmas in the Sixth Dimension, and it's not like this _is_ Christmas, or anything.' Mark muttered, shuffling his feet. Over their heads, their new found "enemy" was tossing silver coins in the air which turned to silver confetti as they fell. And laughing. Laughing a lot. In spite of Ace's oh so polite instance that she be quiet earlier. She just couldn't seem to her herself. She flittered around the ceiling like a translucent red, shimmering, person-shaded wasp. 'And can you do something about all the sparkles in here? Seriously, they're starting to annoy me.'

"Sorry, dude, it's all part of the package," Chuck flicked through the ornately red-and-green, cheerful, glittering booklet absently. Mark didn't care what they said, the sight of a cover featuring random virus in a Christmas hat and Sparx with mistletoe was just wrong. 'They don't do anything they just... float around and look pretty. It's kinda nice, but it is causing a bit of background static in the—'

'Chuck, focus.'

'Right right. Looking for Fear, now...'

'Who needs to look?' Random growled as he passed (he _sounded_ evil. He wasn't. He was just less than pleased about the games-add on addition hats-with-silver-accessories. Turned out that when the game box said "Extra **Power Boosts -** With **Bells** On!" it really meant it). 'Just ask miss glittery up there to pull him outof her sack, seems she can pull just about anything else out of there. Me included.'

Mark rolled his eyes. 'Well, Ace did say if he wanted anything for Winterfest, it would be his friend back.'

'I don't think he meant it _literally_ at that present moment.'

'Aww don't be a scrooge, 'Gut, man, I swear you two are gonna find lumps of icy-coal in your—'

'Chuck!'

'Okay, okay" sheesh, where's your Christmas spirit, dude?'

_At home_, Mark thought moodily. _Waiting for December. And for me to actually do that history assignment_.

'Chuck, if we don't find Fear, get whatever he's taken form.. .from her...' he tilted his head at the being swooping around the rooftop. 'And get her back into the game already, then there's a good chance the whole town is going to go down in chaos within a few hours. Anything could happen, I mean we could be facing...'

'Lord Fear stealing all the presents, huh?' Chuck was grinning. Mark didn't blame him. It sounded really funny when you put it like that.

'Okay, so maybe it's not that big a risk. But this is still really annoying. So she's...'

'Park of the game package dude. I think she's the spirit of Christma—I mean, Winterfest,' Chuck grinned sheepishly. 'She just pops up and goes wherever the spirit takes her.'

'Rrrrright, and she's doing this because...?'

'Program. When in doubt, man, just blame it on the program. She _thinks_ its Winterfest here and so it is; the logistics of the thirty degree weather don't apply to her. You're supposed to fight her later on.'

Mark looks back at the... the whatever-she-was, all lucent red, laughing and glittering, and the lights of the Thunder Tower were somehow _glistening_ too. With bright green sparkles, no less, and...

...Was that _mistletoe_ wrapped around the telescope? 'And we're supposed to fight her.' Mark said, blankly.

'Yeah, I _know_. Don't ask me why, she seems harmless enough. Annoying, but harmless. I'm getting all this from the forums, and the game adaption isn't popular enough for anyone to have done much with it. Nobody even knows just how it _ends_; I just know that she's listed as a Total _Good_ alignment in the guide.'

'Then how are we supposed to _fight_ her?' Mark looked at the figure now draping tinsel from the lights. She didn't appear to have anything in her hands. It just sort of appeared wherever she went, and when she laughed Mark could distinctively hear the jingle bells. 'I mean... look at her! She's putting drapery on the 'Flash!'

'I dunno, man, maybe this is one of the Evil Role Play editions? Oh wait... no, listen to this:' Chuck sniggered, holding up the game book and reading in mock seriousness. '_"Winterfest in the Sixth Dimension is supposed to be a time of joy, merriness and the joining of lights both good and evil! Yet presents are no longer safe in Magery City, when the nasty Lord Fear unveils his most vile deed to date – the theft of every Winterfest gift in Magery city! Play a—'' _Chuck had to stop for a moment to choke down a snigger. Mark had to admit, it sounded... funny. '_Sorry, sorry. "Play as your favourite superhero Ace Lightning in this entertaining holiday bash where you must recover the stolen presents and return them to their rightful owners. Before the Magery Clock strikes thirteen, and the joy of Winterfest spirit is gone forever!_"' Chuck paused dramatically.

Mark burst out laughing.

'I know!' Chuck sniggered. 'It sounds like a Christmas movie I saw when I was _five_.'

'Yeah and from the looks of _her_,' Mark jabbed over his finger at where The Winterfest Spirit was trying to tease Ace into using the mistletoe. 'It's going to play like one as well. We haven't got time for this, Chuck! Anyway, presents? _What_ presents?! It's the middle of August!'

'I dunno, but do you think it means we'll get presents too? Like early? Because I've totally got my eye on whatenevert the next addition to this game is, I hear there's a great one they'rebringing out for Thanksgiving involving Lord fear evoking the God of previously eaten turk—'

Mark started, not sure whether to laugh again, or panic. 'Chuck, no! A thousand times no!'

'Kidding, dude, I'm just kidding!'

Mark sneezed as somebody dropped a piece of tinsel into his face and it tickled. Yeah, the Joy of Winterfest was going to be a formidable opponent alright.

And damn it, he was _still_ ignoring the jingle jingle.


End file.
